Got woken up at 5 this morning....

[Nicola Dolby]

Hi Mark,
I wouldn't worry about housemates finding out. If the landlord is ok then you're fine and if they are responsible adults you'll just get mild curiosity at worst. If they're not responsible adults you'll have a housemate with Pterinochilus venom in them. They won't mess with your spiders a second time!

[James Box]

yup.... and we all travel around in cars powers by rotten dinosaur remains

exactly!

The male gigas i had was treated like royalty for a while, over the first night (after mating) he hung around the entrance to the females burrow, she however was else where digging another (apparently for him). the second night (after mating) he shot off to the new hole and she returned to hers. (strange that he headed straight for the entrance too, the tank was 30 x 20 inch floor area)
Four more matings were seen, the first three with a hasty retreat, but after the forth the male just turned around and very slowly sauntered off (almost complacently) without hesitating she jumped him and over the next two days kindly piled the "leftovers" in one corner for me to retrieve.

that's still pretty amazing behaviour, Colin...not quite so much as the rubbing against the fangs thing the male did in the BTS journal article, but instead of legging it, when he KNEW what was behind him...
oh and the burrow digging, that's also pretty amazing!
gigas are an underrated species by far!

[Colin D Wilson]

gigas are an underrated species by far!

As you will find out soon enough grasshopper!!

[James Box]

indeed!

so Mark (topic return!) are you going to attempt to breed???

[Louise~Nichols]

Cool,

the tanks are designed in such a way that I should be able to create a simple cross link between the two to minimise any disturbance - then the male can wonder in if he feels like it, or not bother.... up to him!

That sounds brilliant Mark, and I hope the *little drummer* gets himself into *palp-action*!! lol Let us know how it all goes, and maybe some pics too please?

[Mark Pajak]

oh breeding is definitely on the cards and I'll try and document it as much as possible whatever the outcome - at least I have two males now. Still its a bit strange one has not left his retreat for weeks, he just sits with his feet out.

...and the female is a feisty one!

[Louise~Nichols]

hehehe...maybe the feisty female is exactly why one of those lads stays in his retreat, he's thinking *beggar that, I'm staying in here and the other boy can try her out first*...a wise spider!! LOL

[Richard Shah]

yes probably - I don't have the reference to hand but I think it has been found that there is a trade off between being eaten and thus providing food for your offspring, or carrying on to mate again and producing more offspring, knackering yourself in the process.
(either way can have benefits for lifetime reproductive sucess, if you measure it by the number of children you raise to go on and reproduce themselves.)

or from the non scientific perspective... "Life's a b**** and then you die!!!"

Lol!

i don't know, having read about a gigas family cohabiting, the male eventually offered himself to the female, almost as if he instinctively knew his time was nearly up, and she could use the protein for the babies...which is pretty amazing behaviour if you ask me.
so yeah, they end up as food for something, but then don't we all? so that doesn't really convey any information. even the females end up as dinner for scavenging bugs and bacteria one day.

That is cazy but extraordinary behaviour!
And yes, we all end up as food cuz even if we are cremated, microorganisms and the other organisms where (and if) the ashes are scattered will still find and and attempt to eat us.

yup.... and we all travel around in cars powers by rotten dinosaur remains

True; so... the CAR is eating the dinosaurs. Ba******!

The male gigas i had was treated like royalty for a while, over the first night (after mating) he hung around the entrance to the females burrow, she however was else where digging another (apparently for him). the second night (after mating) he shot off to the new hole and she returned to hers. (strange that he headed straight for the entrance too, the tank was 30 x 20 inch floor area)
Four more matings were seen, the first three with a hasty retreat, but after the forth the male just turned around and very slowly sauntered off (almost complacently) without hesitating she jumped him and over the next two days kindly piled the "leftovers" in one corner for me to retrieve.

That's crazy, but a fascinating all the same!!!

[Peter Lacey]

Finally found the original one I was looking for, these are all from the same guy:
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FOiHzG9n0x8"]YouTube - Poecilotheria rufilata drumming[/ame]

[Mark Pajak]

pictures coming soon -

I bridged the gap between both enclosures last night,

but after a night of drumming (having missed seeing any real action by falling asleep) I have woken up to find the female sitting inside the entrance to the previously carefully constructed deep vertical retreat of the male, and the male sitting inside the rather shoddy looking retreat previously occupied by the female.

[Kate Arbon]

Heh, sounds about right. I can imagine their spidery conversation last night. "How can we mess with him while he's asleep? What's he least expecting us to do?"