Ornithoctonus aureotibialis mating

We bred our giant O. aureotibialis last night. which was quite amusing because she is so HUGE compared to the male.

You dont get to see a lot of the female but when you do, look at the size of her legs in comparison to the male (she is nearly 7" legspan)
The male has lived to see another day.. well at least until over the weekend when he goes in again.

lol,even the male looks huge to me..
anw,very nice species.

The female was our 'unknown earth tiger' Turns out every now and then you get a genetic oddball where you either get a 'dwarf' tarantula or in this case a 'giant' tarantula. you think he is huge... the female has a 7" legspan and 3/4" fangs!

But the good thing is that by a successful mating, we are now 100% sure she is Ornithoctonus aureotibialis Otherwise she would have chewed him to pieces.

I used to have one of those. I'd kill for one again.

Update:

The male had done another sperm web and we were going to chuck him in again last night.. until the female came out for a bit with her abdomen twice the size it was before they mated!!!!
So it's safe to say she has a fair few eggs in her.

Now we were confused.. usually you have to dry them out for 2 months and then soak the substrate again to signify a rainy season to stimulate her to fertilise her eggs and make an egg sac!

However after speaking with Soren Rafn, he basically said why not? if the female is happy with her conditions she may want to get on with it. He has know Avics produce an egg sac 14 days after mating! So anything is possible.

To further our suspicions that she is making eggs, she has nearly closed off the hole to her burrow so she can only just squeeze out of it. She is also more skittish and aggressive than usual. So fingers crossed

Have you candled her? Lori candled her P. irminia a few days before she dropped a sac and she was translucent yellow.

But it sounds good that she's sealed herself in -- that's what our two most recent sac-dropping girls have done.

you expect me to get anywhere near her to get a torch near her.... what planet you on hahaha!!!! I value my fingers!

I think we will just leave her to it, if she drops a sac all is good. I'll endanger my fingers when it comes to pulling the sac

LadyRiotControl wrote:

I'll endanger my fingers when it comes to pulling the sac

haha,its true.
they were already defensive enough.what more should we say after a sac is being made?

she's still filling in the entrance. she has been out gathering substrate so we got another good look at her. abdomen is still growing and almost lumpy looking.

We were told today to leave her with the egg sac 2-3 months... depending on how brave we are! we may end up catching slings if we leave it too long lol.

I appreciate this isn't the best picture in the world but here's her bum! 10 days since mating

Before: (abdomen roughly same size as carapace)


10 days later: (big booty!)

wow.....nice one...an old world T?...how big do they get?...i mean the female...very nice...i'll add it on my list...

well usually they get to about a 6" legspan. but our female is a 'mutant' and has reached just over 7" legspan

And she just keeps getting bigger



She is laying down some really thick webbing now... uses her back legs to help lay it all down. she has made a big 'carpet' area outside of the burrow entrance - I do hope this is where she intends on making the egg sac so we can watch - get it all on video