Antrodiaetus pacificus

Last weekend I was fortunate enough to stumble upon one of the Mygalomorph spiders native to Oregon. (For those not in the know, Mygalomorphs are the more "primitive" spiders that include tarantulas and are seldom encountered in temperate climes.)

I knew that at least several species of Antrodiaetus were found in Oregon, but I had heard they were almost impossible to find because the entrances to their burrows are so well-camouflaged. I found this one by pure dumb luck, lifting a few random pieces of dead wood to see what was underneath.

(For more pictures, as well as larger versions, please visit my gallery. Photo credit goes to FunnyLori, camera provided courtesy of Rabscuttle.)

I brought her to a few entomologists I know to confirm the genus as well as the fact that she's a mature female. They told me that mature specimens can live up to five years and that there's a distinct possibility she's gravid. My own research confirmed the species as A. pacificus - the most convincing feature is the single tergite present on her abdomen. Females of this species have one whereas males have three.

This girl is currently housed in a mini-habitat based on suggestions made by the entomologists. I'm going to watch it for a turret (burrow entrance) and offer her prey in a couple days. With luck, I'll look in one day to see dozens of her miniatures running about searching for springtails to eat.

More molts

Checked on the Hottentotta today. The pudgy one molted, and the slender one died. No great surprise there.

I just hope that among the survivors I have at least one male / female pair that survives to adulthood. If I succeed and breed a second generation, I'm DEFINITELY setting up a hotbox for the young.

I checked on my limited tarantula collection -- one of my OBTs and my Avicularia versicolor both molted.

Latrodectus geometricus producing an egg sac

The title says it all. I apologize for the video quality, but despite having an awesome DSLR for still photos, the only video device I have is my cellphone.



(In case the embed isn't working, you can find the video here on YouTube as well.)

Unfortunately, this isn't the specimen that I want to start producing sacs. This is the dark-morph I got from a friend in Georgia -- the same one whose hatched sac I posted photos of yesterday. Oh, and those slings plumped up considerably after they finished their cockroach.

Centruroides vittatus, widow spiders, centipedes, and a vertebrate

This is the female Centruroides vittatus that I mentioned may have absorbed her embryos. She's finishing off a cockroach in these pictures that she eagerly seized and immediately stung earlier today. She's fattened up considerably in the past couple days and I'm hoping the food and boosted warmth and humidity will help her kick-start some fresh embryos.


My two pairs of Latrodectus hesperus have been cohabiting for almost a week now and neither male has been eaten. Hopefully I'll get some sacs from these girls soon.

I tried getting a shot of the other pair but it didn't turn out -- same with my mated L. geometricus. She's gotten VERY fat and still hasn't produced any sacs yet. Luckily, my other female's sac hatched recently:

I haven't closely examined those two photos, but I estimated by looking at the slings themselves that there's around 80.

Now for a few critters I haven't posted about yet. Here are my two centipedes; the first is an immature Scolopendra subspinipes that I bought as a pling (pedeling) in October 2006. This is the only species of centipede that has a human death attributed to its venom.

This next one is an Ethmostigmus trigonopodus that I bought in May of 2007. I have no idea if it's full-grown (it's a good 2"-3").


And finally, a vertebrate. This is my fiancee's blue-tongued skink. He was hanging out near the side of his enclosure instead of freaking out and hiding, so I thought I'd take a couple pictures.

Good news, bad news

Bad news: the last of my Centruroides margaritatus died. It was almost ready to molt to 5th instar, I think. There goes that community idea. This leaves me with six communal species, assuming I can get my C. vittatus to re-produce that brood she was carrying. She eagerly fed today, so that's a good sign.

Good news: my second Latrodectus geometricus sac hatched the other day. I estimate at least 80 slings. I'll try to post pictures tonight or this weekend. (The first sac from this particular female was a dud.)

The female I mated still hasn't produced any sacs for me. My L. hesperus pairs are still cohabiting after nearly a week, though.

Miscellaneous Updates

I figure it's about time for a few random updates since I haven't posted in nearly a month, so here they are.

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I've been trying to downsize my collection a bit, mainly so I could focus on keeping communal species -- I'd rather have a large pile of deli cups if I know that the inhabitants can eventually be housed together. My current collection (scorpions only) has been reduced to:

0.1.0 Centruroides hentzi
0.0.1 Centruroides margaritatus
0.1.0 Centruroides vittatus
0.0.2 Hadogenes paucidens
0.1.0 Hadrurus arizonensis
0.1.8 Heterometrus longimanus
0.0.5 Hottentotta judaicus
0.0.4 Pandinus imperator
0.5.0 Tityus stigmurus
1.4.12 Uroctonus mordax
0.0.1 Vaejovis spinigerus

The only species on that list that aren't communal are the H. paucidens, V. spinigerus, and H. arizonensis. I plan on passing those onto other hobbyists soon. The C. hentzi is an adult female that I've had for over a year so I'm not thinking of breeding her again -- I may just keep her til she expires rather than giving her to someone without knowing her age. The C. margaritatus I've decided to keep until adulthood in the hopes of finding a mate (this is the bicolor morph which is very pretty, and I would love to have a community of them).

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Last week I was stopping by the lab I used to work in, and as luck would have it, the woman who spotted the U. mordax that birthed this summer found another one! On the floor of a classroom she was in, no less.

I have no idea how, but a third-instar U. mordax somehow made its way into one of the buildings at OSU. The habitat for this species has to be at least ten miles away. I asked an entomologist in the building if he knew anything about it, and the closest answer he could think of was an escapee from a soil litter sample somewhere in the building.

It sure worked out well for me, though!

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The same day as the arrival of the renegade U. mordax, I got a package from a friend of mine in Texas -- five third-instar Tityus stigmurus. This is a beautiful orange and black species native to Brazil that happens to be parthenogenic (for those of you who don't know, that means it's capable of reproducing asexually; a mature female will simply give birth to little clones of herself). Hopefully this will be the easiest community I've ever attempted.

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Last night I was checking on my second instar U. mordax and noticed one in kind of a funny pose. My thought, since it wasn't moving but clearly wasn't in the "dead" pose, was that it was preparing to molt. Later that night a friend of mine to whom I gave one of the other 2I said hers was molting -- after double-checking on mine, I saw the same thing!

None of my other nine from this brood have molted yet, so hopefully they will soon. Some look like they're still to skinny (I hope they begin to feed more). Oh, and I found out another one of the five that I gave away died.

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A couple weekends ago I was checking on my U. mordax community and lifted a rock where there had previously been one adult and one subadult female -- now, there was one adult female and half of one subadult female.

I took the larger female out in case she may have been gravid (gravid females are known to be less communal across a lot of species). It was dissapointing to see my collection shrink, but as the saying goes, "all scorpions are communal until they aren't."

I thought it may have been due to the size discrepancy, but within a few days my male and the other subadult female had occupied the same hide under the rock. Also, I saw one in the corner when I went to mist, and discovered it was sitting on top of a tankmate. Perhaps I just had a grouchy female.

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The same female mentioned in the above minipost was taken on a community outreach and gave me my first sting experience with this species. I was a little disappointed at how weak it was -- it barely went beyond "dry sting" status, and that's only because I felt a little tingling after the fact.

If you're wondering, I was attempting to scootch the female off of my hand and onto a student's at the outreach, and she flicked her tail back at me. I felt her stinger connect (like brushing your finger against a pin) but felt no pain -- just a slight tingling a minute later. I figure it was somethign akin to a scorpion "warning shot." I used it as a chance to explain to the students how harmless this species was even if it does decide to sting.

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And finally, a non-scorpion post.

A friend of mine from Georgia was able to pick up a few brown widows the last time she visited home and told me she had a male if I was interested. I initially had two males; one got eaten by a female and one was more or less a runt that just died.

I picked up a male and female from my friend (they were cohabiting, so I figured that was a good sign) on Thursday night last week (I write this on Tuesday morning). Friday night I introduced him to my only female. There was much web-dancing and moving about the tank, as well as some movement by the female, but I eventually grew bored and left them alone. I returned later and saw the male in position, and could clearly see the reproductive structure unwound from his pedipalp and in the female's ventral opening (forgive my lack of knowledge with spider anatomy).

Shortly after I arrived they separated and the male backed off from the female -- I assumed I disturbed them and he would now be eaten. However, when I checked back in 12 hours, they were mating again! As of last night they were still successfully cohabiting.

I figure I can leave the male in there, as he's been with all the females in my posession and has no further use for me. If he gets eaten, that's too bad; if he stays alive, that's an good example countering the "widow" status of his partner (though she did eat the first male I offered her).

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Hopefully soon I'll be able to post pictures of the new T. stigmurus as well as the freshly-molted U. mordax.