Hi. I got a B smithi, B vagans and B boehmei at the same time and they were roughly the same size (vagans slightly bigger). I've been housing them in exactly the same conditions and feeding the same. The vagans and boehmei have been growing beautifully but the smithi seems to be lagging behind... The vagans is about 3x and the boehmei 2x the size of the smithi. Is this difference in growth rate related to species differences or is their some other factors I need to look at?

B. smithi is slower than B vagans and B boehmei, but it depends on the individual spider as well.

Other factors are heat, food and competition.

Heat: I try buy 3 of the same species where I can. Kept some of each in a heated tub this winter and some at the mercy of the Lowveld winter. The ones in the tub are way ahead of the unheated ones with the same food. Not really a scientificamalistic experiment as the samples are so small (in numbers) but enough to convince my wet brain.

Individual spiders:C fimbriatus. 3 spiders from the same sack. All three molt within a week of each other, yet one is less than half the size of the other two.

Competition:My communal spiders all outgrow their individually housed sack mates. This is dubious as there is a paper where they experimented on this with Hysterocrates gigas and found this not to be true. But then H. gigas is only one species..

B. smithi's are slow growers.
There is no formula or set pace for every specie, every spider is unique in its patterns.

There are members here who have evidence of several Ts from the same sack that have grown at VASTLY different rates, a few who are at 6cm+ while others are still 2cm.

The only factor to consider is sex as the males tend to grow faster because they mature quicker but this is also not the rule.


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