Citharischius crawshayi successful mating

[Austin S. Spears]

Well, so far. She was bred close to 3 months ago. temps around 85-90, then pop! I can direct you all to the complete breeding record of this species is you'd be interested. but I'll keep the pics up hourly!

Well she is making her hammock right now!

[lynn mawdesley]

Well done Austin bet you over the moon!

[Austin S. Spears]

woke up this morning to this.


This is cith. crawshayi is some don't know. It will be left with the female until day 35 or I may just leave it with her the whole time.
From the looks of things, ITS HUGE.

[lynn mawdesley]

Aww so pleased its worked out for you this time Austin

[Austin S. Spears]

Was checking her out a minute ago. I HAD to get this shot!

[James Box]

that's fantastic news mate! knew you'd get this far eventually!
hopefully the rest goes ok!

[Austin S. Spears]

Well to make a long story short, yesterday morning, she ripped everything down, including the hammock and all the silk that it was suspened from. I do not know why she did? The mating season in Africa for this species is during the rainy season, maybe why this species makes a hammock so it doesnt touch the ground. Well I havent been flooding her burrow that much, so maybe she realized there was no need for it to be suspended. Well I dug to get the silk mess out (from the looks of things, it looked like she ate the sac) but when I pulled the glob of silk, the sac was still attached. I decided to incubate it myself. The eggs look PERFECT.





I talked to Guy Tansley and a couple others and they all agree this would be the best thing to do, and so do I.
Note: If you look closely while turning the eggs, you can actually see the "yolk" or whatever inside moving. Does this mean that is is infact fertile? Hope so! {D

[James Box]

oh wow! those eggs do indeed look flawless! good luck with the incubation!!!
i don't know about that possible sign of fertility, but you're already doing well i would think!
awesome and truly exciting news!

[mary walters]

Looking good Austin congrats mate

[Richard Gallon]

Austin,
Now this would definitely make an excellent BTS journal article! Well worth getting all your dates and conditions recorded and published.

I agree, the chalky look to the eggs is a good sign (the dried fluid they were laid in and hopefully fertilised in too).

With them being close together make sure you remove any which go black (sure you will anyway) and record numbers removed. Another bad sign is if the eggs go clear and get a white spot which floats to the top (if there's a white spot on the side/bottom that's fine).

Best of luck,
Richard

[Austin S. Spears]

The days keep ticking, and the eggs keep looking better! None have been tossed yet.

You think things are forming inside?