- Joined
- Aug 3, 2006
- Messages
- 86
Steatoda paykulliana (Edit: I thought...)
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
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
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