Dolomedes fimbriatus

2 weeks ago I went to a birdwatching tower and on the trails I found several Dolomedes fimbriatus, which is the biggest spider species native to Finland I managed to catch a few



Female:


Male:


Later at home I introduced the males to the females. This male got lucky


...and a few seconds afterwards she got lucky ;P *munchies*


Here the female is munching on a mealworm. The poor male is already in her belly


Last night the female had made me a gift


Another female had molted a while ago so I took a few pics of her too
Here she is with a ruler


And here are links to some bigger close-ups:
http://kotisivu.suomi.net/pronty/IMG_5266Dolomedes.JPG
http://kotisivu.suomi.net/pronty/IMG_5267Dolomedes.JPG
http://kotisivu.suomi.net/pronty/IMG_5268Dolomedes.JPG

I hope you like the pictures
-Pekka

Oh and tomorrow I'm going back to the birdwatching tower to see if I can find more

Me too! Me too!
Give some for me too!

Babies!

Yesterday one of the females had her babies


and today I found more babies from another female


this picture taken without the flash shows the number of the little ones a bit better


I still have one more female with an eggsac and two females that haven't made eggsacs yet.

You are not concerned about the slings escaping through those air-holes? What are you going to feed them?

Great pictures and it is most certainly a beautiful species!

Steffen said:

You are not concerned about the slings escaping through those air-holes? What are you going to feed them?

Click to expand...

I put some tape over the holes and I released most of the babies today to the place where I found the spiders.

triton vs fimbriatus

Hi,
Beautiful spiders, I once caught some D. fimbriatus from southern England and raised them. The wild caught juveniles matured and reproduced normally. The offspring grew to adulthood but I could not get a successful mating. The males seemed to only be able to get on top of the females but were never able to turn them on their side. Also, the females had limited patience with the males and put up with their fumbling for a shorter period of time than wild caught females. I never found out what was causing the mating issues. I fed them a mixed diet, but they lived indoors with little dirrect sunlight. Feeding the babies was actually not as difficult as some have experienced. I had individuals in 15 ml test tubes with small vent holes and some water. I would cut up pieces of crickets etc and put a small portion at the top of the test tube. Upon encountering the food most spiders would feed. So yes they were scavangers, how undignified. I had to remove excess food soon afterward or it would collect mold in that humid environment.
I have also collected and raised Dolomedes triton from different parts of the USA (Texas, Louisinana, New York) and the similarities outweigh the differences between these speices. Although in captivity D. triton spends more of its time at the water surface than D. fimbriatus which often moves to the top of its container. Also D. triton is slightly longer and thinner legged than D.fimbriatus. However, D. fimbriatus is the only one that I've seen tap at the water surface with its front leg to attract prey. And this was only a few individual spiders.

Thanks for your pictures and if you go back could you take some pictures of their environment. My fimbriatus were caught in a bog.

Devon

Devon said:

Thanks for your pictures and if you go back could you take some pictures of their environment. My fimbriatus were caught in a bog.

Click to expand...

I have some pictures of the trails I have taken earlier. If the pics seem a bit dark, that's because they were taken just a little bit before midnight And no, I couldn't find any spiders at night



You can see the birdwatching tower in this pic and also the water level. It's close to the seashore




And spider news. One of the females made a second eggsac:

Thanks for the pictures, I found mine hanging around the smallest of puddles and in the low vegitation of a drying bog. Have you noticed that the females dip and soak their egg sacs in water? So what time does it get dark there? Well good luck if you decide to raise any of the spiderlings. Like I posted earlier, they will take cut up parts of insects that they come across even if they are larger than themselves.

Devon