I'm with Abrie. This stuff is so exiting! Thanks for such an inspiring thread, Scarab.

This "ritual" has fascinated me for some time now, and I am yet to fathom why they do this.

I can only speak of M balfouri (duh), but I suspect this behavior might also occur in other Baboon spiders, of which I have no experience. Guys like Cerat, Hendrijs and Mr Gildenhuys might concur.

When the mother opens the egg case, the slings remain in the burrow for some time where they are taken care of by the female. She takes food down the burrow and feeds them what I believe to be regurgitated nutrients. The image below illustrates.



Then, as they grow bigger, so does their confidence. They start exploring the webbing outside the burrow, but only during the day, clumping together in groups. It seems they find the presence of the female re assuring when it becomes dark and would move back down the burrow during the late afternoon.



This early to late afternoon basking ritual only starts when they are bigger, probably about forth to fifth instar. I doubt that they do this to wait for, or collect food. I have only seen them scurry back down the nest if I place a few crickets onto the webbing. It takes a few minutes for them to come back out, then their calm demeanour turns into a frenzy, each sling trying to get into the action. I have seen one sling dash out of the burrow and "accidently" grab a sibling. It let go immediately and then proceeded to grab a cricket.

The other reason I doubt that they do this in order to collect food is, when this behavior starts at about forth instar, they are still very much dependent on food supplied by the female.

I will have to wait for this group of ten to grow some more and see if this behavior changes.

(The images in this post was not taken from the communal, only posted here to illustrate a few of these observations.)

Very interesting indeed. The internet lacks an extreme amount of research and it looks like I will need to join "The British Tarantula Society" if I need to do more research. The only other interesting data I have collected so far is that it would seem that they stick to the communal even with a body length of 2cm "so far". The information was gather on a video on youtube from a user called Alexbonac. The rest of the the video's that was available was by a user called TubedScarab

So in conclusion so far you have, and still are documenting more behavior/breeding and the communal live in the brood thus far.

@scarab ,when you feed them does the mother and the babies share food or do the slings catch their own food? Just curios to know .thanks

Huzi, after the slings are assisted to exit the egg case, they are only fed by the mother. I get the idea that they feed from her mouth area at first as shown in the picture in my previous post. I can't say that they don't eat solids, but it doesn't seem like they do. Once they get a bit bigger, maybe the next instar, they still get food from the mother, but also share bigger freshly killed meals provided by the female. I have witnessed more often than not, she will catch prey, take it down the burrow and put it down. She then retreats while the slings absolutely cover the prey like Vultures. It takes them between 5 and 10 minutes to consume an adult cricket. I usually give the female another cricket, which she then would consume by herself.

As the slings grow bigger, they actively hunt smallish prey items. When they do catch something, they would normally feed alone, but I have seen them share prey. Image illustrates.



I have never seen the young spiders share a meal with the female, or the female take prey away from the young to feed herself. I have only seen young share with each other. As these spiders mature, I will be able to see if they still share food. Up to this point, I have only witnessed the mother share, and slings share with each other.

2 hd cameras and your communal setup = M balfouri documentary... Hint hint

Edit: your voice is Perfect for the narration


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