Advice needed on G. rosea male

JDS

Arachnosquire
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Aug 2, 2002
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I was looking at purchasing a mature male G. rosea from a local Petco depending on the price they give me. I don't know yet if it molted at their store or not and I didn't see any signs of webbing. I was considering this male for mating purposes. Do males reach a point where they are no longer viable for mating? Any clues to look for? What do you think he's worth? Thanks for any advise.
 

crash769

Arachnosquire
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May 29, 2003
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Hi I just got a male g. rosa. I paid 10$ for him. They do reach an age where they dont make sperm webs anymore. All I would say is to see how bright he is and look at the bulbs on him. See if they are shiny and plump. I bread him to two of my rosa's. One molted last night but the other started digging a lot. I havent seen her in a week so I hope this is a good sign. I heard that they can be a little hard to breed and need lots of dirt to dig. keep me updated on how your project goes. {D
 

deifiler

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Feb 22, 2003
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Basically, look out for how responsive and alert the specimen appears to be... You can't really judge by the looks, especially in species reknown for so many colour variants. Also, battered wounds etc may be misleading.

Give it a good pokin'
 

AphonopelmaTX

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How active the male is will be your best clue as to whether or not it's breedable. Trying to look for a sperm web or remains of a web won't provide too good an insight as the boy will tear it up beyond any recognition. They will reach a point where they won't breed anymore and at this point males of G. rosea will act more like females or immatures. As crash769 said, they are hard to breed. Twice while attemping to breed G. rosea, I had to force the male into mating by pushing him into her. In my experience males won't willingly tackle the female in captivity. But of course that may have been the circumstances the spiders were in when I was doing the breeding and most likely isn't true for all pairings.

-Lonnie
 

JDS

Arachnosquire
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Aug 2, 2002
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Thanks for all your advice. I will be contacting the caretakers there to see what they can tell me about his history. Maybe they'll give me a price I can't refuse.
 

Philth

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Jan 4, 2003
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They do reach an age where they dont make sperm webs anymore.
I would say thats not always the case. I have a post ultimate male rosea(mature male that survived another molt), although he lost his palpus, he still builds sperm webs on a regular basis. But to stick to the subject, a male that old , or any male that is mature for more than 6 months or so, has his days numbered, for breeding purposes. Although, how would it hurt if you tried a old male on your female. Whats the worst that could happen? Good luck either way :)
 
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