Do mature males burrow?

[Colin D Wilson]

I've heard stories but never observed anything myself. I think it was Ray Hale that once mentioned something about a mature male that moutled and, if i remember right, got stuck (?).
Maybe Ray can elaborate on this when he next visits.

[Phil Rea]

Thanks alot for that. I had too choose a aggressive species too breed for the first time but I always say if you throw yourself in at the deepest end it gets easier from there. Its definately going too be a fantastic learning experience. I have started a diary and am updating it everytime something happens (You never know i may just see about putting it in a future bts journal)I also have a resident camera woman in my mrs so we should get plenty of good pictures and hopefully some video. Should be a well documented event when it happens.

It seems too be a house of breeding at the moment too we currently have 2 gravid scorpio maurus (isreali gold scorpion), 2 gravid caraboctonus keyslingi , Possible gravid urophonius granulatus (pygmy wood scorpion), 9 chinese water dragon eggs and another clutch of eggs too be laid by the water dragons

Good luck with all the breedings

I've heard stories but never observed anything myself. I think it was Ray Hale that once mentioned something about a mature male that moutled and, if i remember right, got stuck (?).
Maybe Ray can elaborate on this when he next visits.

I have a male Homoeomma sp. 'blue' (large) still wandering about his enclosure, almost a year after his maturing moult. He matured on 20/10/07, and I haven't managed to find him a female. He's still eating well, although he looks fairly scraggy now the poor old fellow.

He's got to be coming up for a moult soon. I doubt whether he'll survive it, though

[James Box]

that's a species i'd looked at a couple of times Phil...now i wish i'd got one for your male!
always a shame when you can't find a girl for something like that
hope he lasts just a bit longer!

Matthew and Lisa, good luck with all the breedings!
hoping that male U granulatus you have makes honest women of my females come soon after the Leeds show

[Matthew Baines]

mature male that moutled and, if i remember right, got stuck

Apparently according too the tarantula keepers guide (Schultz) it only gets the emboli bulbs stuck and by putting glycerine on the pedipalp tips too soften them and kept really humid they could survive another moult, whether they would be still fertile is another question .

[Ray Hale]

I have had a number of males attempt to moult again after maturity. In almost every case the spider has got stuck as it tries to extract its bulbs. In one cas e the bulbs actuallly came away and the spider was left bulbless but did survive. Post mature male moulting is a rare occurrence and why they should do so is a mystery. On the occassion that the male ( Haplopelma) did survive intact the spider went down hill quickly seeming to be niether bothered in mating again or living. It did not feed and died quite quickly. I have only had males of Asian species moult again but this may not be relevant has I keep predominantly Asian T's anyway.

Any info on this is always gretalt recieved as this remains a grey area in the study of tarantulas.

Ray

[Nicola Dolby]

If you have some cork bark try making him a ramp. I know it sounds daft but that is what I did with my lividium and he used it perfectly! On the subject of mature males burrowing, I have a pruriens who burrows but he only does that to look in the moss for crickets! If they already have a den or pre-moult burrow they will use this during the day (as my MM schmidti does) but generally they're just prowlers

[Phil Rea]

I have had a number of males attempt to moult again after maturity. In almost every case the spider has got stuck as it tries to extract its bulbs. In one cas e the bulbs actuallly came away and the spider was left bulbless but did survive. Post mature male moulting is a rare occurrence and why they should do so is a mystery. On the occassion that the male ( Haplopelma) did survive intact the spider went down hill quickly seeming to be niether bothered in mating again or living. It did not feed and died quite quickly. I have only had males of Asian species moult again but this may not be relevant has I keep predominantly Asian T's anyway.

Any info on this is always gretalt recieved as this remains a grey area in the study of tarantulas.

Ray

I'll keep a close eye on my Homoeomma sp. then Ray

[Matthew Baines]

Have been observing my haplopelma sp Vietnam after i placed his tank next too hers and started noticing some different behavior from usual.

The female has been going to the side next too his tank and staying there for long durations at a time when she comes out on a night time , this morning i have seen evidence of her excavating a deeper burrow and the male was asleep in a different possition this morning , he was right next too her tank which is the opposite side too his usual sleeping location.

I dunno if these are promising signs but if i see he has built a sperm web , im going too breed them straight away ( If he hasn't done it by monday im going too try your method phil with the web) Im keeping a diary of everything that they do too.

[Phil Rea]

Not sure you're aware Matthew, but you may only see the barest remnants of a sperm web.

If he goes into her enclosure and starts tapping, then you can be entirely sure that he has loaded emboli and is ready for action

I am mating O. aureotibialis this evening, so wish me (and the male!) luck

[Matthew Baines]

Cheers phil and good luck both of you.

[Charles Senescall]

Not sure you're aware Matthew, but you may only see the barest remnants of a sperm web.

If he goes into her enclosure and starts tapping, then you can be entirely sure that he has loaded emboli and is ready for action

I am mating O. aureotibialis this evening, so wish me (and the male!) luck

This is interesting. Have you found that a loaded palpal organ is a precondition for male courting behaviour in this species or indeed for Theraphosidae in general?

[Phil Rea]

This is interesting. Have you found that a loaded palpal organ is a precondition for male courting behaviour in this species or indeed for Theraphosidae in general?

I have had males of various species that I suspected had made sperm webs not go through the motions, and in fact seem positively reluctant to move an inch when coaxed into the female's enclosure, and males that I know for certain that have made sperm webs immediately start to drum and/or vibrate.

I haven't done any study on the matter Charles, but if you think about it logically, why would a mature male tarantula, whose sole purpose in life is to inseminate as many females as possible and propagate his genes, risk being attacked and killed by a female simply to go through the motions of mating and the risk involved if there was no possibility of offspring?

[Matthew Baines]

Will brushing the webs from the female on his legs get him drumming if he has loaded his bulbs?

[Phil Rea]

Will brushing the webs from the female on his legs get him drumming if he has loaded his bulbs?

No idea. What I've noticed is that at least with some males it seems to make them sense that there is a female nearby. Don't know if it works for anybody else, but it seems to work for me

[Charles Senescall]

I have had males of various species that I suspected had made sperm webs not go through the motions, and in fact seem positively reluctant to move an inch when coaxed into the female's enclosure, and males that I know for certain that have made sperm webs immediately start to drum and/or vibrate.

I haven't done any study on the matter Charles, but if you think about it logically, why would a mature male tarantula, whose sole purpose in life is to inseminate as many females as possible and propagate his genes, risk being attacked and killed by a female simply to go through the motions of mating and the risk involved if there was no possibility of offspring?

Hi Phil; yes that makes perfect sense to me too and I had assumed that to be the case. I was interested in this comment because Foelix (Biology of Spiders 2nd ed) states that (p. 189):

“For a long time arachnologists thought that “sperm induction” was a precondition for the courting behaviour of the male. In a series of elegant experiments this idea has now been refuted. Male spiders with their palps removed or with a covered genital opening display themselves quite normally toward a female (Rovner, 1866, 1967). It is likely that the initiation of courtship is triggered by the central nervous system, probably via hormones, some days after the spider’s last moult. Perhaps this explains why newly moulted males, which have not yet filled their palps with sperm, do not court in the first days following moulting.”

Rovner’s experiments were with a lycosid spider. Further experiments were conducted by Costa (1998 JOA 26:106-112) again with a lycosid spider although of a different species to that used by Royner.

Your observation, which I acknowledge is not a controlled experiment, is interesting and I wonder now whether any such experiments have been done on tarantula species that would confirm or refute these results.