A story about raising and breeding Eresus kollari.
On February 2017 I came upon a small (no more than 4 mm) Eresus sp. on the slope under the stone in steppe, that I've decided to bring home with me and rise it. The spider was given a food items of proper size - small ants and beetles at the beginning, then it has molted 3 times, reached length of 15 mm and started to feed on large Tenebrionidae (Blaps sp.), Cerambycidae (Dorcadion sp,) and small to medium sized Carabidae (Harpalus sp.). Here's a pic of it shortly after the last molting (you may see the remains at the top right corner), what a beautiful
coloration (my apologies for the large pic)!
Now lets move to the breeding part. In June I've came upon a small field with low vegetation, exposed to the sun, that appeared to be a good place for Eresus kollari colony. A total number of a 84 borrows was counted on an area approximately of 150 square meters. One adult male and one female were caught.
After the female has made a borrow, I've introduced male into her enclosure. Soon a male wave a spermacethic net, but for the first 3 days all his attempts to mate with female were unsuccessful. After he was finally given a permission, male crawled into the borrow, where a couple gad mated multiple times for the next 3 days, after it female again became aggressive towards him and didn't let him to come close, also the male has woven a small retreat web near females borrow. He was a successful hunter, but shortly after he managed to catch a prey, a female came out and robbed him
That lasted for a weak, until a male has died.
1 week later, a female has closed a borrow entrance and 5 days later i found her guarding a round flattened egg sack on the bottom. Thus lasted for 5 weeks, until I decided to check what was going on, opened an entrance and oh my! Dozens of small white spiderlings were gathered around mother hardly moving! A week later they've molter for the first time, but still didn't change coloration. They started to swarm arround mothers chelicerae, so I think she was feeding them with some kind of a special liquid mixture as it's mentioned in one article. One more week has passed and mother crawled up to the entrance of borrow and the next day I've found her already dead, with deflated abdomen and swarming small ones around her body.
At the moments, spiderlings have already molted 3 times and changed their coloration to fully black, also, they still do not leave mothers nest, only coming out to strengthen an entrance after I disturb them (
here's the video).
Sorry for many letters. just wanted to share with someone
