Infertile eggsac of Haplopelma lividum

Infertile eggsac of Haplopelma lividum

by Michal Toran

Haplopelma lividum Smith,1996 is a beautiful tarantula species that is native to Myanmar, Thailand, Laos and Burma. It occupies tropical rain forests in its native country where it builds hiding places in root systems.

Colouring: the abdomen and carapace are brown with thin lines, the legs are cobalt blue with reddish little hairs on the inside of the femur. The male is brown-purple, the abdomen is brightly brown and mature specimens posses tibial hooks. The female body size can be about 5 cm in length.

I keep my female in a terrarium 20 x 25x 30 cm (width x high x length). I placed a layer of 6-7 cm deep mixture of peat and vermiculite into a terrarium as this species likes to excavate burrows in the substrate. I also placed a living plant (Scindapsus) into the terrarium and the female excavated a deep burrow under the retreat in which she stays all day. This is a very reclusive species which is active mainly during the night. I keep a higher temperature, 26 - 27 °C, humidity about 70-80 %. When there are relatively good conditions during breeding, this tarantula can be extremely gluttonous. I feed the spider with crickets and the occasional pinkie mouse.

My female, which moulted for the last time in May 2004 (9th moult), hid in her hiding place in the middle of February, she blocked both of the openings to her burrow and I haven't seen her from that time. Of course, I suspected what was going to happen from this behaviour.

I saw the female on 1 March with a sterile eggsac in her chelicerae and she stayed with her sac in her hiding place all the time, which she had broadened into two connected corridors. On 19th March, I again had the chance to photo her with her cocoon next to the mouth of the burrow.The next day, the female discarded her eggsac outside of her hiding place. Inside the coccon, there were only wet, mouldy and rather bad smelling eggs. Despite this, I was glad because this was a proof of her sexual maturity.

As the female was very weak after this sterile eggsac, I gave her a few crickets and grasshoppers. Now is the time to wait until her next moult, to feed the female and to get hold of a male.

Author: Michal Toran, arachnomania@seznam.cz , www.arachnomania.com

Literature used: František Kovarík, Chov sklípkanu, Madagaskar, Jihlava 2001


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