Crossbreeding Avicularias for Science?????

Have a question here. Were I to attempt breeding A. metallica male to A. avicularia female, for scientific purposes...

I've heard discussion as to whether A. metallica is a mere color variation of A. avicularia, and seems it would be interesting to find out. Am merely pondering the possibility at this time. Would they be fertile? Would they live harmoniously as A. avics are reputed to frequently do, or would the tendency be more as A. metallica, hungry loners? Would the spiders be weakend or strengthened by such a cross? What would they look like?

What are the questions one must answer prior to undertaking such? How many slings would I need to raise and eventually breed to be able to show a trustworthy result? And to what would the hybrids need to be bred to? Other hybrids of the same cross? Pure species of the parental varieties?

And this is only in the event A. metallica male is not eaten by A. metallica female and still has some juice left...

I did a search and was not able to find anything on this, specifically. Anybody know if there are reports of this having been done already?

It is 2am here now. I may view this thought completely differently in the morning.

I've been reading a lot of threads on hybrid Ts lately also. Like you I haven't found anything about these two species specifically but there are some great (and not so great ) discussions on this subject.

Ahh just thinking of bed and what do i spy , Ok I myself have bred A.avic x A.met hybrids for 2 generations the original mating was an accident a A.avic (Small W/C green as green) male to a “classic” A.met (C/B large blue and heavily grizzled) female the young all followed the mother in looking like A.met (sons and daughters) and when mated back to each other brother to sister and son to mother they looked like A.met again and of course were fertile.
Now the kicker is that said even that fact does does not prove there races or sub species of the same spider as a few animals cue the king/rat/bull snake hybrid augments again are thought by most ppl that know to be "true" species (and in tho's case's not even the same genus) and can still produce fertile offspring.

Ah, thanks, Frylock. Very interesting. More to ponder. Have you written up your findings and published anywhere?

OPPSS Just a quick FYI on this I do not support or condone hybridising even avic’s that maybe only races/colour forms of the same spider I fact I was not sure of the differences between the two when I did the first mating (which was iirc at least 13 years back),maybe JMO here but even if many of them are found to be "meer" colour forms by the taxo's we should respect them as there found in the wild and do are upmost to mantain them as "pure" forms in captivity.

spidergoddess said:

Ah, thanks, Frylock. Very interesting. More to ponder. Have you written up your findings and published anywhere?

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Sadly not but it would have been of no real use as colour is not a valid tool for classifying species (i know you hear Martin say this a lot but it is true and also not a new idea) however Phillip Charpentier did write on mating and breeding hybrids from these two in 1992 i believe i do not have a info as to ware this was published tho.

Thanks again. Appreciate your comments and thoughts. It would seem there is no point to letting Mr. Metallica meet Ms. Avicularia, in the glow of your enlightening words.

Have just had an event occur that has completely blown these ponderings out of my head, anyhow. See my next new thread, which will be entitled: "I was wrong! Hallelujah!"

FryLock said:

Now the kicker is that said even that fact does does not prove there races or sub species of the same spider as a few animals cue the king/rat/bull snake hybrid augments again are thought by most ppl that know to be "true" species (and in tho's case's not even the same genus) and can still produce fertile offspring.

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Hi Fry,
I've had this argument with Phil here numerous times. The successful snake hybrids were done under captive breeding projects (not found in the wild in sustainable populations, ever) and as such, do not present a valid argument against isolated reproductive mechanisms as any and almost all natural barriers (see articles by Ernst Mayr) have been removed. This does not contradict Mayrs species definition at all. In fact, it actually addds weight to the argument if anything.

To all who still do not understand this, please search for articles written by E.Mayr, it will help greatly.

Also, for this experiment to hold weight, the offspring (if any) will need to be raised to adulthood and bred again, to see whether or not they are in fact infertile. Even then, this will not PROVE both species are in valid, as the experiment will be done in captivity. To give this any weight, try involving a biology student or professor, who can offer some excellent tips.

Cheers,
Steve

With A.avic and A.met the variation in animals is what makes most ppl hold to the idea that there one and the same the important thing to do would be to find if both main types and the intergraded types that sometimes show up share range or not but course even if they do that does not mean there one and the same, iv seen a few of the half way houses myself which confused me when my own mongrel stock continued to take after one side and not the other (warning going into star trek science here) maybe there two species after all and one is genetically dominate over the other or (this is a bit more lightly) be they separate species or not the female genes are stronger and both sex’s in any offspring take after the mothers side.

With most of the north American coloubrids that can cross I think the control is probably as silly as the males prefer the smell of the females of there own species, as many species that can produce fertile young share range tho added to that maybe small differences in biological cycles times when females are at the most receptive after all in the wild they can get away from a male if they want to, although a lot of reptile keepers/breeders are not to keen to point this out as its one of the main arguments used by the anti herp lobby “they only breed because they are bored in captive conditions” then they bring up other more anthropological examples i.e if you put a man and women in a cell together for long enough ect ect.

Like Steve has said to do something like this and have it hold any weight would take quite a lot of time and work (maybe money too) and avic’s would imo be a bad choice, as for something like this is be scientific the parent species would have to be proven to be separate species to start with and be validated with both a physical exam and most lightly a DNA exam as well (and probably w/c too c/b stock could already be racially or even species mixed in some cases) and at the end of the day this kind of work is probably already being carried out with avic’s (exam of type’s resampling of animals from collection sites and we would hope DNA testing) as part of there genus revision so any work to prove or disprove species using hybridising would be a bit redundant in there case.

P.s Steve stop making me think about stuff i have to stop drinking

There is a pretty definate division between A.metallica and A.avic. A.metallica has urticating hairs if Im not mistaken and A.avic does not. Why this crossbreeding push? It is a better idea to leave crossbreeding if it is going to occur to nature, and worry about the preservation of current species. With many species being on the CITES list already it is responsability of the hobbyist to preserve a pure strain of these species for possible re-introduction to the wild and the enjoyment of future hobbyists.

Yog-Sothoth said:

There is a pretty definate division between A.metallica and A.avic. A.metallica has urticating hairs if Im not mistaken and A.avic does not. Why this crossbreeding push? It is a better idea to leave crossbreeding if it is going to occur to nature, and worry about the preservation of current species. With many species being on the CITES list already it is responsability of the hobbyist to preserve a pure strain of these species for possible re-introduction to the wild and the enjoyment of future hobbyists.

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The definitions of tho’s two almost always come down to three things does it have red hair on the abdomen (a.avic yes a.met no) does it have heavy white tipping (grizzling) on the hair on the legs (a.avic little or non a.met lots) and lastly does it have green or blue iridescence and the last one has been shaken some what by green A.metallica hitting the market (at least in Europe) non of tho's reasons are really anything more then hobbyist lore, when avic's are revised we will see (hopefully) if there really the same animal or not.

fyi all avic's have type II urticating setae (the type that has to be pushed into the skin)

Wow i didnt know that A.avics did, I knew that the other sp. did and thought it was a bit suspicious. Never heard anyone ever mention it and have never seen it in a book or website.

Yog-Sothoth said:

Wow i didnt know that A.avics did, I knew that the other sp. did and thought it was a bit suspicious.

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Garrick Odell's site has some great info on differnt genera >Here< some info on Aviculariinae subfamily there