Poecilotheria regalis breeding...

01/07/2001  My Indian ornamental (Poecilotheria regalis) molted into a mature male, searching for a female.
02/16/2001  A friend's female regalis recently molted, so I'm going to try to keep my male viable until then by keeping him at room temp.
03/11/2001  I placed the female in the male's cage and will let them live together until I'm satisfied that they've mated all they want. There wasn't any immediate activity.

Later in the evening, the male was drumming audibly all over the cage, and the female was following him around. Courtship seemed to be very complicated. The male would seem to turn around and walk away any time the female touched him (though she usually did announce her approach with drumming of her own). She would again have to search for him. Sometimes they would have a rather energetic encounter (I would describe it as violent, but there were no injuries on either party). It didn't appear that mating was sucessful, but they flew all over the cage so it's hard to say. The male would resume his drumming immediately thereafter, and the female would again gain interest and the process would repeat.

03/12/2001  The female has taken up residence in the male's web and he's out and about (he reacted quite nervously to my approach).

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