lineage tracking software

Yanose · Apr 26, 2015

so I am looking into software programs to track the bloodlines of my tarantulas Maybe something that uses barcodes. Has anyone else looked into this. I have some Ideas but if something exists already I would rather just get it.

Poec54 · Apr 26, 2015

I don't know what good this would do you, it's already so jumbled up. Slings get traded amongst dealers and breeders all the time, and few will reveal their sources. You can buy a sling from a dealer in California and one from a breeder in New York, and they could have been from the same sac, or the same mother in a different year. I'm a small breeder and I know that my slings have wound up all over the country. How can you know what's related and what's not? With spiders it's far more difficult than reptiles, as new males are needed every year, so you can't have an isolated breeding pair; you're always having to get new males, and it's difficult, if not impossible, to trace whether those are totally unrelated to your females in previous generations.

Keep in mind almost all our species came as CBB from Europe, from small groups of wild caught animals. Many are from remote areas where collecting is difficult and expensive, or illegal. People can't keep going back to get more specimens and more bloodlines, so what's in captivity keeps get bred to relatives, and eventually most or all are related. There's very few bloodlines in the US with the vast majority of species, and it's almost impossible to unravel the inbreeding that's already occurred over the last couple decades.

Yanose · Apr 26, 2015

I kinda wondered about how I could be sure of what was related to what when I got my spiders. however at least with my breeding project I will be keeping track as well as possible. The Idea was not to run bloodline background checks but more for cataloging my own breeding project I realize I can not know with certainty the lineage of any of the Ts I buy but from me on I can track them and intend to that was more what I was after some thing for me to help me keep track of who I bred to who and when whether a sac was produced. If the sac was viable ect....

8LegsMomWannabe · Apr 26, 2015

Poec54 said:
I don't know what good this would do you, it's already so jumbled up. Slings get traded amongst dealers and breeders all the time, and few will reveal their sources. You can buy a sling from a dealer in California and one from a breeder in New York, and they could have been from the same sac, or the same mother in a different year. I'm a small breeder and I know that my slings have wound up all over the country. How can you know what's related and what's not? With spiders it's far more difficult than reptiles, as new males are needed every year, so you can't have an isolated breeding pair; you're always having to get new males, and it's difficult, if not impossible, to trace whether those are totally unrelated to your females in previous generations.

Keep in mind almost all our species came as CBB from Europe, from small groups of wild caught animals. Many are from remote areas where collecting is difficult and expensive, or illegal. People can't keep going back to get more specimens and more bloodlines, so what's in captivity keeps get bred to relatives, and eventually most or all are related. There's very few bloodlines in the US with the vast majority of species, and it's almost impossible to unravel the inbreeding that's already occurred over the last couple decades.

You know, a thought popped into my head reading your post.

I wonder if it would be possible to do DNA testing? I imagine DNA could probably be procured from molts and analyzed for relatives. Sort of spider paternity/ancestry testing.

Now I wouldn't think the feasibility would be too high. The expense of the testing, IF you could even find a lab that would test tarantula DNA, probably would be a deterrent for most. Plus with the captive population already being so inbred that it would be rare to find a non-related specimen, that would probably provide a stinger deterrent.

Still, it's an interesting thought.

Poec54 · Apr 26, 2015

Yanose said:
I kinda wondered about how I could be sure of what was related to what when I got my spiders. however at least with my breeding project I will be keeping track as well as possible. The Idea was not to run bloodline background checks but more for cataloging my own breeding project I realize I can not know with certainty the lineage of any of the Ts I buy but from me on I can track them and intend to that was more what I was after some thing for me to help me keep track of who I bred to who and when whether a sac was produced. If the sac was viable ect....

You don't need software for that. Label your spiders and their offspring. How much breeding have you done?

---------- Post added 04-26-2015 at 06:40 PM ----------

8LegsMomWannabe said:
I wonder if it would be possible to do DNA testing? I imagine DNA could probably be procured from molts and analyzed for relatives. Sort of spider paternity/ancestry testing.

Now I wouldn't think the feasibility would be too high. The expense of the testing, IF you could even find a lab that would test tarantula DNA, probably would be a deterrent for most. Plus with the captive population already being so inbred that it would be rare to find a non-related specimen, that would probably provide a stinger deterrent.

Still, it's an interesting thought.

No, not a particularly interesting idea. We already know the vast majority are related to each other in some way, because not many lines have come in from Europe in the first place. If DNA testing shows your spiders can be traced back to Europe as CBB 10 years ago, what are you going to do about it? Where do you get new bloodlines? It takes a lot of time and money to collect them from remote 3rd world countries. Are you going to pay $1,000 for a w/c tarantula that has new blood?

Would you expect a seller to test his before you buy from him? Very few tarantulas are being imported from the wild anymore, most countries are shut down; what we have now is pretty much all we're going to have, and in a few generations those are already totally mixed up and untraceable. Besides, who's going to put thousands of dollars into DNA testing for lineage? Dealers aren't making those kind of profits, neither are hobbyists. And for what, to find out what we already know, that there are only a few bloodlines for most species?

azroc909 · Apr 26, 2015

I think having a program to help with breeding projects would be a great idea For your own benefit. It may help with a certain species, maybe producing some well rounded offspring in the long run by selective breeding and inbreeding within a family and implementing some new bloodline on a certain time to refresh the lineage even if you buy them from say across the country and there's a chance they are still related it wouldnt hurt. Take in consideration other animals we as humans have produced and practically made my experimenting, breeding, and inbreeding like dogs, horses, cattle pigs etc... at one point there was only a hand full of domesticated animals / pets species. From one species came all types of color sizes etc. Example the dog so many variances from your Chihuahua to bull mastiff came from one species. So in my opinion breeding within the same family group like grandson to grandmother spider would not hurt it and you don't necessarily have to have various bloodlines of the same species to produce a well established group of spiders.

Yanose · Apr 26, 2015

it is mainly that I prefer a digital format to a lot of paper yes I could just label each enclosure. I am thinking more of being able to look the stuff up on my computer. not really needed just for me personally.

Poec54 · Apr 26, 2015

azroc909 said:
Take in consideration other animals we as humans have produced and practically made my experimenting, breeding, and inbreeding like dogs

Not really anywhere near the same thing. Domesticating wolves/dogs took thousands of generations and tens of thousands of years.

azroc909 · Apr 27, 2015

Poec54 said:
Not really anywhere near the same thing. Domesticating wolves/dogs took thousands of generations and tens of thousands of years.

Agreed; but they all came from generally a small gene pool. I assume that the person who started breeding / domesticating didnt have a vast amount of species or bloodlines to acquire from all over the world. So imo you don't necessarily need wild caught specimen to refresh or add to a captive bred species, even if they're related at some percentage you can still have a well rounded captive bred species.

lineage tracking software

Yanose

Arachnobaron

Poec54

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Yanose

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8LegsMomWannabe

Arachnopeon

Poec54

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azroc909

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Yanose

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Poec54

Arachnoemperor

azroc909

Arachnosquire