Cross breeding

[Nicola Dolby]

All I can say is get your poor rabbit into therapy fast!!! That guinea pig needs locking up!!!!

[Peter Roach]

The only thing that stands in your way, Giant Tarantula Man, is my army of Millipede legged, giant tree frogs with whom i shall protect the world from all evil !!

I really worry about some people

They just shouldnt be let out unsupervised

[Stanley A. Schultz]

... Is it generally considered wrong to cross breed tarantulas in the hobby. ...

Not quite correct. "Frowned upon" may be more descriptive. Arachnoculture is still too new a hobby to have developed the same code of conduct as other more mature hobbies like tropical fish and orchids. Be patient. The day of hybrids is yet to come.

Having said that, it IS considered wrong to sell hybrids without warning the buyer that they're hybrids.

... The reason i ask is that how do we know that they dont do it anyway in their natural environment . ...

We don't. And, some almost surely do even if we don't know about it.

... I know these examples seem a little far fetched , and obviously they dont all live in the same environments totally but it is a possibility dont you think ? ...

It's not the environment. There's a whole host of prerequisites that must be met before any two animals or plants of different species can hybridize, and that subject forms whole branches of several sciences - genetics, animal husbandry and plant husbandry being chief among them.

Among tarantulas, the two parents must at least belong to the same subfamily. So, an Avicularia X Theraphosa cross is definitely a no-go. Even if they belong to the same subfamily, it's highly unlikely that they'd be successful, except...

You'd have a better chance of success if they belonged to two closely related genera. I've heard of Brachypelma X Aphonopelma hybrids, for instance.

You'll have the best luck if they belong to the same genus, and this is the commonest sort of hybrid you hear about.

The major problem with hybridizing tarantulas is their long lifespans. You can hybridize guppies at the rate of better than one generation a year. Many tarantulas have generation times measured in decades, however. Working with these would almost require the concerted efforts of several generations of humans.

A little known characteristic of hybrids is that all the parent's characters tend to cancel each other out. The first generation hybrids (called the F1 generation) tend to be very blah and uninteresting. It's only after you start crossing the F1s with each other to get F2s do you begin to see some interesting results.

Then you start selective breeding with intense culling to favor the characters you want and suppress the ones you don't want. After four or five generations a few of your babies will be able to breed relatively true. But by that time your grand children are thinking about retirement!

Hope this helps. Best of luck. Enjoy your (possibly hybrid) tarantulas!