Tarantula sex

Find out why some spiders in this family turn blue. These spiders, of which there are nearly a thousand species alive today, generally mate in the spring and summer; but some species are known to mate only in the winter, said Nelson Ferretti, a tarantula expert with the the National Scientific and Technical Research Council in Argentina and lead author of the review. Once males reach adulthood, they "charge" their two pedipalps, or palps — small appendages near the front of their head — with sperm. During the mating season, charged males will go out in search of receptive females by zeroing in on their pheromones, or chemical scents, though it's unclear if only receptive females produce male-attracting pheromones. Ferretti has only seen a confrontation between two male tarantulas, but instead of fighting they tried to mate with each other before going about their separate ways peacefully, he said.

July 12, - Courtship… more. July 12, - Courtship between two giant baboon tarantulas comes with the risk of injury and death for the male. This rare video begins with the male shaking his legs, a sign that the tarantulas are preparing to mate. Then, the male approaches cautiously, since many females spiders will eat their partner. The female also could potentially bite into the male's face during mating, which goes to show that tarantula sex can be risky business.

Perhaps the most controversial subject in the captive husbandry of tarantulas is the issue of "how to sex a tarantula". Over my 30 years of keeping tarantulas alive in vivaria, I must admit to having been fooled many times both by the spiders themselves and by my well-meaning colleagues or so called "experts", who claimed to have discovered some foolproof method of accurately determining the gender of individual tarantulas. Well, if those techniques were indeed "foolproof", then I must be nobody's fool, since they have proven to be about as but no more accurate as flipping a coin.

Determining the sex of your tarantula can be challenging. However, several key anatomical differences will make the job easier. Generally, tarantula females are larger and bulkier than males. Similarly, female tarantulas have broader chelicerae, her jaws or fangs, than males do in proportion to their body size.