Rosie sitting on prey items?

Cocoa-Jin

Arachnobaron
Old Timer
Joined
Oct 15, 2007
Messages
440
My Rosea has been fasting for 3 months. I occasionally place a roach or something in the tank every few weeks to see if she'll eat.

Instead, when she senses it she moves toward the insect and feels it up. It doesnt seem like an attack posture, but instead a curiosity thing. She'll feel the food with her pedipalps and front legs, probing and just lightly touching it.

Most food items just freeze at this point and burrow if they can. The T will then walk over the partially buried insect and lay on it. After a while she walks away.

Now my question, could this all be a mating behavior? Could her fast be a mating behavior? A reproductive "safety" mode to minimize here chances of eating a potential mate.

Its just odd, she goes after anything that moves in her tank, but it never seems aggressive...I mean nothing like they way she moved when she was eating.
 

butch4skin

Arachnoprince
Old Timer
Joined
Feb 15, 2007
Messages
1,380
My Rosea has been fasting for 3 months. I occasionally place a roach or something in the tank every few weeks to see if she'll eat.

Instead, when she senses it she moves toward the insect and feels it up. It doesnt seem like an attack posture, but instead a curiosity thing. She'll feel the food with her pedipalps and front legs, probing and just lightly touching it.

Most food items just freeze at this point and burrow if they can. The T will then walk over the partially buried insect and lay on it. After a while she walks away.
It's just that, "curiosity". Also, a T that isn't particularly hungry needs much more stimulation in the form of movement than a hungry T, which will often scavenge and so forth. One thing you may try is to sort of maul, but not kill, your feeders, before throwing them into the enclosure. That way, they'll just sort of twitch regardless of what's going on, and certainly won't burrow.
 
Last edited:

omni

Arachnobaron
Joined
Apr 30, 2007
Messages
382
She maybe is going into pre-molt. I had a similiar experience a couple mos. ago before my rosea molted. I asked about seeing her not eating and actually stomp a cricket. She only fasted for about a month before molt, and I really had no clue she was going to. Post-molt she looks much the same as before, dull brown, just a lil more faint pink on the carapace. Now my rose hair is probably the hungriest T I have:}
 

Nerri1029

Chief Cook n Bottlewasher
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Sep 29, 2004
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There are much more definite signals from a potential mate that "tell" the female a male is interested.

Drumming is one. The chemo receptors in both male and females help identify potential mates. So safe to say this T is not acting this way due to mating issues, but rather no appetite ( for what ever reason )

IMO - you have a G. rosea I'd sooner try and figure out females of the Human variety than rosies heheh
 

Mack&Cass

Arachnoprince
Old Timer
Joined
Oct 14, 2007
Messages
1,574
My rosea does the same thing when she's in premolt and I know its got nothing to do with mating behavior because she isnt mature. It a curiousity thing IMO. You have to remember that Ts are essentially blind so any vibrations or movement the detect they check out. When the food stops moving she probably looses track of it and "thinks" it left the area.
 
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