Cyriopagopus schioedtei Male - Will the tapping ever stop!

[Jon Candlish]

Hi Guys

Looking for advice info about the strange behaviour of my Cyriopagopus schioedtei. Having only seen it twice in the 8 months i have had, it emerged last night an started to make up for lost time by doing laps round the tank. This is normally the sign i have a male on my hands and closer insepction revealed that the little blighter has a decent set of spurs on him. This is all great news, then came the tapping... He has been 'tapping' (im guessing theres a fancy name for this) against the sides of his enclouser all night by spreading his body and the bouncing his fangs off the glass/wood. He will so this every 5-10 minutes and its pretty loud manging to wake me a few times in the night. My guess is this is some way of attracting/communicating with potential mates but im not sure? Has anyone experinced this behaviour before as i have never come across it before (i have kept around 50 different species). Does anyone know how long this lasts? Also what is the avearge span of this species following maturity as i guess i should think about letting him to his thing sooner rather than later.

Thanks for any info in advance.

Jon

[Craig Mackay]

It's quite normal for mature males and females to do the behaviour you've just described and your correct in saying this is how the attract/communicate with mates. I find males don't tend to do so much tapping but more of a vibrating body twitch and gentle tapping of the legs but every species is different. The females tap much more aggressively than the males and it can be quite loud and is usually in response to a male but I've had females tapping when there isn't a male of the same species around. I've had them tapping in response to various things like the washing machine, loud music my fingers, guitar playing etc. As for your spider an even easier way to tell if it's male or female or not is whether its green or a mixture of blue and red. Cyriopagopus schioedtei males turn an all over olive green colour a few moults before their maturing moult.