A couple weeks after Ninja's male molted, I tried to breed him with my female.
Both seen here: http://tarantulaslair.com/main/viewtopic.php?f=29&t=751

The male was interested in mating, but the female was not. Although she was well fed imo, hunger still prevailed over the desire to mate. As soon as he made contact with her (touched legs I), the female lunged forward and nailed him in the anterior section of his carapace. She wanted to eat him, so I 'dropped' the camera, grabbed her between legs II and III, and squeezed a little to get her to release him.

As a result of the bite the male had a large gash from the fovea to the clypeus on the right side of the carapace, with muscle exposed and hemolymph oozing out. The left palp and leg II were limp with little function, and I thought leg I was going to detach as it was just being dragged and the spider could not move it all.

After a month of rehab, the male took his first prey, and all limbs are fully functional. Pretty amazing as I really thought left leg I was going to be lame, and the right chelicera useless. Unfortunately I misplaced the images of what the male looked like shortly afterwards somewhere in my computer. I really need to find them...

Dried hemolymph is abundant near the coxae on the carapace and legs, and a dried portion of muscle is visible on the base of the right chelicera, along with the black scar where the carapace was ripped open.


The next step is to try again (or just send to someone who needs a male...), except this time I should have a little bit better idea if something is about to go wrong thanks to some tips Ninja gave me.

Awesome frickin report, Jeff!


What do you mean part 1 tho? Are we gonna have to wait another 3 months for part 2???

wow crazy. hope you have better luck w/the next breeding.

Wow! Thanks for the info Jeff. Can you explain a little more about how you got her to release. So you squeezed her where the legs met the body? Thats great info for us newer people.

Sorry about the male. Looks a bit painful...

Spoke with Kelly yesterday after I saw your post. He asked me how bad the carnage was since his internet is down. I told him it was pretty d*mn gruesome. You did an awesome job of recovering/saving this guy, Jeff. Hats off to you. I spent 2 years raising a P.regalis male and my man-eating female took him out the first night. he tapped, she tapped, they were in love but...next morning he was a bolus. You went above and beyond on saving this guy. Di

Careful squeezing poecs, for experience squeezers only
Good safe Jeff, Am sure fella just was doing his job
I always feel bad for boys, I like em...
What can I do.., I just like boyz

Thanks all, except you Dustin... Seriously though, I'll try to have some more on Sat, hopefully mating images. I seem to have saved the missing pics to the wrong file, and haven't found yet.

Pretty amazing the resilience of these guys. I thought for sure a head wound would have been fatal. I wonder if the female injected any venom as well...
I was thinking death during the first couple days after the bite.

My 'rehab' consisted of an 80oz fabri kal/w poly lid and a little water (1/4" deep) in it. My strip light is sloped on top, and I just put the container on it whenever the light was on. The top of the light is about 80-85 degrees, and the water pooled on the low side so the spider could choose wet or dry. He stayed in the water for about a week in the typical huddled resting position with the legs close to the body, and then started stretching the wounded legs and palps. That was a great sign at the time, and he was back to 'normal' a few weeks later.

The water was changed only when needed as disturbing him could have caused the partially healed wounds to bleed and stressed the spider. And boy is it easy to stress a pokie!

When I grabbed the female, I just used the typical thumb and forefinger method Viper, one on each side of the head in the middle of the legs. Didn't really squeeze hard, but enough to get her to feel threatened and focus on me rather than the male, and not be able to free herself and bite me!

It really isn't good to pick t's up like that in general imo, especially nervous/defensive t's as mentioned, they don't like it, and it can damage the hairs on the carapace resulting in rubbed areas. On the other hand, some of the complacent type t's don't seem to mind it at all though......

Yeah, I wouldn't pick up a pokie like that unless I had to... their bites hurt! A little three inch mysore got me once, and man did it sting!

Thanks for the info Jeff. Its helpful 8)

Awesome post, Jeff.

So are you done with the male or are you gonna try it again?

Well, I'm back from the internetless domanes, if that's actually a place and word
I can't believe that little guy is still going, he's got intestinal fortitude if nothing else! Man I feel bad for his circumstance, but he's doing fine it looks like and hopefully he'll end up being a daddy! Let's see how it goes from here!