Poecilotheria maturity?

[Mark Pajak]

Hello All,

Having raised few Poecilotheria fasciata spiderlings from 1cm they are now growing readily - one seemed to grow much faster than the others and matured into a leggy male in February.

I came home yesterday to find the second largest has shed and grown considerably. Definitely not a male, but could she still be a juvenile, rather than a mature female?

The male has done nothing but remain in his hide for the past few months as if he knew he had to wait for something. The tanks are next to each other so should I just wait see if he can sense a mature female?

I don't think the spider that has just shed is fully grown, but can smaller females still reproduce? I don't want to accidentally send the male to his death by attempting to mate him with an immature.

[Colin D Wilson]

Hi Mark
I've known of people breeding smaller females successfully (a moult (or two) away from fully grown) egg sacs have been of an average size for the species..
I don't have any personal experience or advice to give i'm afraid, but i'm sure a few will answer this more fully with their own experiences.

[wesley flower]

i bred a 6" female P. pederseni and got a fertile sac

[Nicola Dolby]

I wouldn't be too concerned about this Mark. I tried to breed a pair of P. subfusca a few months back and the female was just too young. All she did was ignore him and after a couple of weeks it was obvious nothing would happen. So don't worry about him gettnig eaten, she'll just say "no", although if you leave it too long (over a fortnight) and he becomes a pest she might have a go at him. Still if they haven't bred by that time then it isn't going to happen anyway so best take the male out. Hope this helps.

[jan soetaert]

never tried breeding myself but is it good practice to mate 2 spiders from the same nest. Inbreeding and stuff like that???

jan

[Kate Arbon]

Hey Jan. I asked that question a while ago and apparently it isn't a problem for spiders. Not sure why, but inbreeding has not been shown to cause problems even after several generations.