Tony and Karl's Curly Hairs...

Karl brought his mature ♂ B. albopilosa to service my female....so cups of tea at the ready and standby....
For info the female is on the left in each shot....


Karl introducing the male


Initial approach....


♀ making initial contact...


Getting involved....


♂ looking to engage his tibial hooks....


Hooks engaged, ♀ pushed skyward and transfer of sperm packet...total time taken approx 1:30min....but he gave her the best minute and a half she'll ever have....

just like you tony?...............

trunx wrote:just like you tony?...............

come on now are you working with t's or making a salad up?????

great set of pics!

Well now it can be called many, many things Something was cookin' alright.

Now that's a great series of images, salad forks or not. I have to ask, was there much nail biting? I'd have been the biggest bag of nerves waiting to see what would happen.

Great pics Tony and very interesting series of shots. When do you expect to know the results of the encounter?
John

Great pics....and I think someone has gone a bit mad. What do you think Karl?

Great pics Tony...really wasn't sure whether to click or not with that thread title

Excellent thread Tony, you know this was mentioned at the recent HSI Tarantula talk good to see some images showing the process

LOL @ everyone :P
Loving the tongs Karl
thats really cool to see tony and Karl tho, good luck with the baiiiieees if there are any

This is terrific! May many hundreds of the little cricket munchers follow. They say that a picture can replace a thousand words; definitely the case here - just the sort of instructive stuff I love to see.

Thanks for all the comments guys...firstly Karl, Jack and I had never experienced any kind of spider pairing prior to this, so, we really didn't know what to expect....

@ Tan - no nail biting Tan if one of the critters wasn't happy or we felt they weren't going to engage, we were prepared to separate them, they were both introduced to one another in a faunarium with a large floor space so either could have left the introduction relatively quickly and safely......

by Buddy on Fri Dec 17 2010, 01:09
Great pics Tony...really wasn't sure whether to click or not with that thread title

But you did didn't you...curiosity got the better didn't it!!! Sorry to disappoint......

by igmillichip on Fri Dec 17 2010, 00:40
Great pics....and I think someone has gone a bit mad. What do you think Karl?

Who and whaddaya mean????

For those commenting on my salad tongs, I can assure you Karl was not here last night tossing salad, rather , engaged in an altogether very proper and totally interesting T project....

On a serious note, I find these tongs/spatulas [whatever you want to call them] and awesome set of tools to transfer spiders from one housing to another....they are especially useful in dealing with the faster moving and more aggressive species....

Anyway and again thanks for the interest in the post.....

T [I'm turning into one!!!]

snakeboyadam2k8 wrote:Great pics Tony and very interesting series of shots. When do you expect to know the results of the encounter?
John

John, sorry missed your comment....bearing in mind I'm a fresher at this, the only info we had [and looked up post mating] was that it can take up to a year.... I do get the sense that timings are variable though dependent on temperature and humidity....bracketing between 3-9 months seems to be a safe[ish] bet...I'm very keen to know the answer to this myself and preferably by someone that has bred Brachy sp. before...

Tony, those tongs are indeed the biz even if they do look like an odd thing to handle inverts with....I've added them to my accessories list :)

As Del Boy would say to Rodder's, "You know it makes sense".... and BTW thanks for swinging across last night, an excellent couple of hours....

Amazing shots guys, its great to see this step by step :)

Vormela wrote:Amazing shots guys, its great to see this step by step :)

Thanks...

Anyway Karl's ♂ spun another sperm web so we thought we'd have a second crack at these...the theory being that the ♀ would chase off the male if the first mating was successful....

Well, in he went, tentative as you like...and rather than be immediately receptive like before, the ♀ was quite aggressive....Karl was always at the ready with his salad tongs to separate the pair if required....

so she, fangs bared from the start, was still pushed up into a receptive position by the ♂ and a little packet deposited....let's wait a while now and see what happens....

The boy is bottom in the last 3 shots.....

I have to say I'm finding all this fascinating so thank you to Tony & Karl for this excellent thread and super images Tony.

The fact she wasn't pleased yet went ahead with another mating without hurting the male, interesting stuff guys. We need more threads like this one :)

Wow!!!!!
Keep us updated!

Very good guy's BEST OF LUCK

Fair play to ya guys,great pics,

Any updates Tony?

jonty wrote:Any updates Tony?

Apologies for the late reply...well I'd kind of given up with this girl, but as times gone by, she's gotten bigger and bigger....this photo is from today, I think she's near ready to burst....still no webbing as yet, we'll keep an eye out and report any change as and when.....