Steatoda paykulliana

[Glen Southern]

This a few images of my small S. paykulliana collection. I managed to get hold of an Egg sac and later a sub adult male and female. They were sourced inside the UK from a hobbyist from another forum/board and they were delivered overnight but both the spiders and the sac suffered in transit.

The Steatodo sp. make a different egg sacs to the more robust sacs of the Latrodectus sp. They are made of a finer, much less dense silk. You can see the white eggs through the walls of the sac sometimes. Hense, sometimes they don't travel as well. This sac had burst open and about a fifth of the eggs were rolling free in the container. I put the sac, eggs and debris all together on a fine mesh hammock in one of my regular brood tubs. Kept it in a controlled spider case. 60% humidity and a constant 80 degrees which I'm sure is too high for this species under normal conditons but I just wanted to help the loose eggs along. It's hard to say how big these slings are but the Eggs on my printed scale were under 1mm.

This shot was taken with a Binocular (Trinocular) scope with my Canon EOS 350D mounted ontop. I still haven't got this rig right yet as I get a white blur area in the center of my images even without flash.



This was the Canon with a Sigma 50mm Macro.


The Male is now full adult and looking well ready to mate. He's faster than the latro males I have and makes a break for it every time I open his container. I'm a little worried about how long he will live now he's adult. He doesn't seem to want to eat since his ultimate molt so he may be on a countdown.



The Female is a different story. She arrived in very bad condition and I was going to freeze her at one point. She had Leg I on both side sticking up vertically and dead straight. I could see some legs were also missing. I decided to give her a chance and let he be for a few weeks. She molted out and now is a healthy six legged lady. She was obviously too near to molt to start creating a new limb as there was no sign of even a spindly stump. I am living in hope that she can mate at some point as she is my only adult female.



At one point I thought these may not be S. paykulliana and may be S. grossa as they were both very dark. I checked out the Fauna labs that had some images and that reassured me. I assume that they can be extremly diverse color types in the sp.

http://www.faunalabs.com/photos/a147stp.html

[buthus]

Shes' got her rear legs. She will probably do just fine. Comb-foots that have even one slightly messed up rear leg usually starve.

Yes, I have seem images of these with AMAZING color variations. Beautiful reds and yellows.

[RodG]

Outstanding photos!!!! Best of luck with these guys.

[Bastian Drolshagen]

hi, those are definetly no Steatoda paykulliana!

[buthus]

hi, those are definetly no Steatoda paykulliana!

Oh, oh! Looks like we may have an ID problem here!

From what I've found there are brown morphs. This one does have the U or crescent, but then again so do many theridiidae.
Looking around though... I have to agree that the male here is not paykulliana.
Here is a yellow morph male ...
http://digilander.libero.it/ilragnon.../rnmaschio.htm

Here are some other links...
http://www.nhm.ac.uk/nature-online/l...ykulliana.html

http://www.flickr.com/photo_zoom.gne...4139129&size=o

http://digilander.libero.it/luciuspz/foto2.htm

http://www.sklipkani.cz/full.php?id=1050

http://www.labidognathe.de/wbblite/t...=1739#post1739

http://translate.google.com/translat...lr%3D%26sa%3DN

[Glen Southern]

Improver: You seem really definate in your statement. What ID would you tag him as?

I dropped a quick PM to the Lady that supplied them so I hope she may pop in and take a look.

I only have Steatoda grossa (female) and Steatoda bipuncta here to help ID him. He's isn't either of them. He definitely isn't a Latrodectus of any type. Could he be an S. nobilis? I’d love to get this one sorted. As I said in my post, I did have some doubts when I first got him but as he molted I was happy to take him as advertised. Never having kept the species it's hard to be sure. Of course then, it puts a doubt in my mind about the ID of what is hatching from that sac.

I want to correct the above. I now think he's an S.grossa a male after a bit of research.

http://www.lancing-nature.bn15.net/n...417_edited.jpg

http://mamba.bio.uci.edu/~pjbryant/b...iders/0036.jpg

http://delta-intkey.com/britsp/images/theri08.jpg

One sure fire way to tell. In-fact, two sure fire ways.

I'll throw him in with an adult grossa Female. If he mates, He's grossa. If She dines, he's not. I'll rescue the bits before she wraps him and stick his palps under the scope.

Back in an hour.....

[Glen Southern]

grossa. He did the dirty deed.

Thanks Improver/guys.

Now I need a supplier to help fill the empty section on my Steatoda shelf

[Insecto]

Buthus, can i find St. paykulliana or other species of steatoda's in central europe? If i can find steatoda's here then where should i look for them?

[buthus]

grossa. He did the dirty deed.

Thanks Improver/guys.

Now I need a supplier to help fill the empty section on my Steatoda shelf

The spider genus Steatoda, in the family Theridiidae, includes over 120 recognized species, distributed around the world

Now there are 121! ... ..naw...that male DOES look like the males I find in my neck of the woods that I always figure are grossa. Infact I have one here that i caught a few nights ago. They are the most common spider here that you find wandering into the house...especially when it is cold. I'll have to pull him out of his current situation and take a photo of him to compare him with your male.
Your female is a pretty grossa, if thats what she is. If you look at the grossa I recently posted, you will see that yours has the same markings, but much more of the markings are visable.

You're going to have to make some room on that Steatoda shelf, because you will now not only need to find a paykulliana, but all 3 of the major color morphs ...hmmm...maybe 4. From my quick research this morn...it looks like the lemon flavor is the most common. Then there is that beautiful candy-apple red one! And don't forget the pure jet black variety!

Buthus, can i find St. paykulliana or other species of steatoda's in central europe? If i can find steatoda's here then where should i look for them?

I live in S. California... real close to hollywood. When we need a paykulliana, we just send a grossa to the make-up trailer.

From one of the links I posted above:

Habitat, range and season

Under rocks and stones, in buildings and plantations. S Europe, N Africa and W Asia. Adult females probably all year; adult males in spring and autumn.

[Insecto]

Then i guess i wont find no St. paykulliana in here becose i live i central europe and here is no hollywood with make up tralers where can i transform St. grossa to St. paykulliana .

[buthus]

Then i guess i wont find no St. paykulliana in here becose i live i central europe and here is no hollywood with make up tralers where can i transform St. grossa to St. paykulliana .

Just to show that I'm not completely full of shi+...

The answer was spider make-up. Originally Kutcher wanted to make an entire costume for the spider but the timing came down to the wire and he finally settled on body paint. "I had to find a non-toxic paint, design a little harness to hold the spider as he was painted, and supervise the artist painting Steatoda."

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/n...iderman_2.html

[Bastian Drolshagen]

hey, if you want i could offer some REAL S. paykulliana (of the morph with the red cranial abdominalband...from Mallorca)
I´m keeping S. triangulosa, S. grossa, S. bipunctata and S. paykulliana and got CBs of almost every species. A few days ago I found another large growing Theridiidae which I still have to ID.
Recently I got some Latrodectus sp. x. "Chile" for ID purposes and those turned out to be S. grossa too...so it seems this is a really common species everywhere.
There´s a very interesting paper regarding the epigyniums of theridiid spiders on the net, maybe that could help you iding your spiders.

[Glen Southern]

Hey, Improver, I pm'd you just in case you check it ..lol

I'm really interested in S. triangulosa and S. paykulliana (now I know I have noe..lol)

Glen

[Bastian Drolshagen]

hey glen, i checked it...some popup reminded me ^^
I hope you know, that S. triangulosa is a really small species with app. 5-7mm BL as adults? And I have to check on my S. triangulosa...I don´t really know where they are (have some in every tank). I thought I saw some females with eggsacs in my Sicarius tank recently