Haplopelma lividum breeding...

8/11/2000		My female cobalt blue (Haplopelma lividum) molted.
11/16/2000		A friend's H. lividum molted into a mature male about two weeks ago, and he let me borrow it to attempt to mate with my female, which I'm fairly certain is mature and ready. I divided a 10 gallon aquarium in half with a removable plexiglass center panel. The center panel has holes in it so that they can "smell" each other. I provided each side with a cork hide and a water dish. and lots of substrate so they (especially the female) can burrow if they want. I made sure to make the center panel secure below and above the substrate so that they can't get at eachother unless I want them to. Moving the two spiders into their respective sides was an adventure, but nothing I didn't expect. The male was fairly calm and not at all aggressive compared to the female (who happens to be a real hellcat). She was very pissed and tried to bite me (fortunately, I totally expected it, and she bit her cork shelter instead). The male has yet to make a sperm web since his molt, so I need to give him time to do that. Also, I want to give them both time to settle in and get comfortable.
11/17/2000		I checked on the two lovebirds this morning and observed the male working on a sperm web! He's also got some other webbing lining what seems to be the start of a burrow behind the cork shelter. The female had done a little digging and webbing, but nothing substantial. Later in the day, the female was observed to dig a nice burrow all the way to the bottom, and she was hanging out down there. It's good to see that she's made herself at home here even moreso than her old cage! During the night, both spiders were out at various times. The male was out wandering quite a bit, and the female seemed to be investigating her neighbor, but I didn't observe any drumming, and they never really were both at the middle any of the times I checked on them.
11/18/2000		I checked on them again this morning, and the male had taken refuge in his retreat, and the female was working on her burrow. The male seems to do his wandering at night, so I assume he's still got his days and nights straight even though the closet is dark (he got day and night cycles with his owner who just kept him in his room.) He was webbed into his retreat this morning, but doesn't really have any sort of burrow other than what I provided, which makes sense considering he's a "wandering male" now. I've elected to keep the light on during the day so they both recognize a day/night cycle. I fed them both, but neither seemed all that interested in food. Usually the female doesn't eat in front of me though, and the male is, well, a male. I will probably attempt to introduce them tomorrow. The male has been wandering his tank quite a bit.
11/19/2000		Tonight's the night, I see no reason to wait any longer. The female's burrow is really nice, I'd almost want to live in it! The male continues to wander at night, and the female is seen outside of her burrow during the night as well. She is totally invisible during the day though. I've heard a burrow is important, so it's good to see that she's dug one. Update: WOW! It was like the coolest thing ever. I removed the center separating panel and cupped the male to move him over near the female's burrow. He didn't seem to want to do anything for quite some time, so I turned the lights way down, and he started shaking his body and waving his legs (much different than what I expected to see). He seemed to have trouble finding the female's burrow at first, and didn't know what to do. After a while it seemed like he lost interest. But about half an hour after the ordeal begain, he seemed to find the right spot, but then he crawled up the glass next to the burrow and over the edge of the tank. I thought I was going to have to cup him and put him back in, but when he was halfway out he stopped. A few seconds later, he turned around quite suddenly and slowly drummed his way into the burrow... Then, I could see him starting to back out, so I'm trying to get the camera ready, and get a flashlight so the camera can focus, and also be prepared in case I needed to interevene (in hindsight, I realize she's much too fast, and if she wanted to kill the male, I would have absolutely no chance). I snapped one shot as they started to get into position. The male had to back partway out of the cage to accomodate her as she came out. He then sorta moved in underneath her, and she was supported in the air by him and also the edge of the cage. He was basically vertical and she was horizontal on top. I could see him doing his business underneath. I couldn't see the actual insertion because the female obscured my view, but I'm certain it happened because she was shaking like a leaf. He seemed to be quite calm throughout this whole business, even though she's like 10 times his size (my friend exclaimed as the female emerged "my god, she's huge!"). After about a second of that, they parted ways as fast as I could ever imagine. She simply vanished (back into her burrow, but I had to check cause I couldn't even see her move), and he used his teleportation power to appear on the other side of the tank. I let him be for a few minutes to see if he was going to make another attempt (my brain wasn't working, he'd obviously spent his load and couldn't do squat if he wanted to). I then cupped him back over to his side of the tank and put the center panel back in and put the lid back on. I'd read descriptions of the process, but was still amazed. This is certainly my favorite and greatest moment in tarantula keeping. I'm like totally awestruck. Unfortunately, because I was so nervous, and the angle was bad because of the location of the burrow, I wasn't able to get very good pictures. I will post the ones that come out though.
11/20/2000		Last night, the female could be seen grooming herself quite a bit in her burrow, which I've heard is to be expected a female of this species to be doing after mating. She and her suitor were both holed up again this morning. The male has lots of webbing in his hide now, so it may be hard to tell when he makes another sperm web. He was sitting at the entrance this evening, almost as if he wanted to eat something. He didn't seem to wander much.
11/25/2000		The male has not be wandering at night, and I don't really see much evidence that he's made a new sperm web. He will be going on to the next breeder this next week. I will try to mate them again tomorrow, but I have every reason to believe the first mating was sucessful. The female has shown an increased appetite (she was pretty well packed out before the mating, and was eating relatively little, but she's packing away the crickets again now). Also, this evening her burrow was havily webbed shut, which is the first time I've noticed that since she's been moved into the mating cage.
11/27/2000		Neither spider really showed any interest in mating again last night (I'm not certain the male even made another sperm web), so nothing really happened. The female's burrow is quite spectactular though, so if she's gonna make an eggsac, she should feel secure in doing so. The male is off to another breeder, so now all I can do is wait.
12/05/2000		I tried to peer at the female through her burrow windows (which are fairly webbed up), and she looked (it was hard to tell), quite gravid. One other thing I noticed is a much improved appetite on the part of the female. Prior to the mating, I had her pretty well plumped out and she wasn't eating much at all (a cricket or two a week). She's now eating as much as I feed her (including a rather large MHC). I'll take that as a very good sign.
12/20/2000		The female seems to have gone off feed, or at least partially. A cricket survived a night in the cage for the first time in a while. She's fat as a barn.
12/31/2000		Tada! I noticed a substantial ammount of new webbing, so I peered in the burrow with a flashlight through the windows on the sides. I could see the spider clinging to her new eggsac. It's actually bigger and less round than I expected, but it seems to be fine.
01/02/2001		It's been a few days, and she hasn't eaten the sac, so all seems well. I'm going to leave it with her until the spiderlings are almost ready to emerge so that she can incubate it properly, and then take it so that the spiderlings will be manageable. Also, the sac isn't as big as I initially thought, but it was hard to see through all the webbing. She's actually removed some of the burrow lining, so I can see it a bit better now.
01/03/2001		She doesn't seem to tend to the sac all the time. She'll set it down or anchor it for a while then come back to it later. I don't know if this is normal behavior or not. She does move it several times a day though. I'm also wondering if there was some trigger for her to lay the sac when she did. The spider room had gotten cooler (75°lF) for a week or so because I accidentally fudged the setting on the thermostat (which I already know delayed some molts). Then I was getting it back to the right temperature, but it got hotter than it usually does (almost 90°F) for a couple days as I was trying to find the right setting...
01/11/2001		It seems the mother continues to provide good care for the eggsac. I am concerned though because it seems there is a small outbreak of mites in that cage. I'd rather not remove the sac yet, but it may come down to that.
01/15/2001		She seems to bring the eggsac to the surface of the burrow quite frequently now, but always retreats when disturbed. She also appears to be eating crickets again...
01/17/2001		DISASTER! When I got home today I found that Mom had abandoned the sac. She seemed rather dejected. It was hard and shrivled looking. I could see mites crawling on it, and it had clearly gone bad. I opened it to see if any eggs could possibly be salvaged, but it was full of mites and looked like snot. Yuck. I'll take this as a lesson to remove the sac sooner and incubate it myself so that I can keep a better eye on it.

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