My first-ever tarantula breeding!
I'm through with my first tarantula breeding!
Yesterday, after two weeks of planning and feeding the spider, Dávid came over and brought a male Tapinauchenius elenae with him (that's the orange tree spider). I was very excited, mostly because of two things - first, I've never seen a tarantula breeding before, let alone my own one; second, if the spiderlings hatch before December, I might have a very good chance to make good money and deals at the December fair, especially since my whipspider has abandoned its cocoon and my chance of having baby whipspiders for sale in a time.
That's why I've been rather excited to see if my spider's breeding goes okay. But Dávid's forethought got justified, for as soon as we dropped the male in, he immediately started to shake.
Tarantulas have various ways to call out to their mates - some chirp, some audibly drum on wood and the glass with their legs. My spider started to shake, because the vibrations it makes in the nearby objects can very well get to the female, and call her.
It didn't take long for the female to answer the call, and she climbed right out of its hiding place, and started to search for the male. This spider has always been small (it's a quality of its species), but now, well fed, it looked huge and beautiful. I was really proud!
She immediately started to lure the male into her lair, but the male was kind of cunning, and lured her out instead.
If a male tarantula is stupid enough to enter the female's lair instead of calling her out, he might easily get eaten - don't get prejudices, they are not very bright creatures, and the female thinks about defending her hiding spot way before checking out it's a male of her kind.
Then they started having sex, hanging vertically from the glass wall. It is a fascinating process. First, the male has to find a way to disarm the female, who hulks over him with fangs all bared (kinda scary and pretty savage). Then, he moves in close, puts his long front legs on the female's fangs, and pushes them back so that he won't get bitten. Holding the female like this, the male moves in very close, and tries to put its sperm into her... well, er... where male spiders put their sperm. It doesn't take more than a few seconds, after which he releases her, and the female drops on her back in total extasy, looking as if the best thing in the world had just happened to her.
The only problem was that since they were standing on a glass wall, every time the male finished, the female almost fell down to the ground in the dropback phase (she wouldn't have minded, mind you). This made the male try at least fifteen times, but (even after a fright following me bump a bit into their tank) finally they managed to finish.
Now the male is in there, and I'm waiting for the female to eat him. Okay, hold your horses, this is not like as it sounds.
There are very good reasons for this. The first - and most important - one is that if the female catches the male, it gives her an exceptionally big amount of protein, which ensures the success of the spiderlings better. Second: if I take the male back to the shop for someone to buy it, I'm only risking someone buying it and becoming my concurence on the market. Third: males are very different from the females. They are small, grey and live almost four times shorter than females, so people in the hobby treat them as accountable casualties.
Anyway, I'm very proud of the whole thing, and I'm eagerly waiting for the female to make her web, and make her cocoon. And it's gonna be a pretty nice experience for me to learn how to rare a litter of spiderlings!
Keep your fingers crossed!