Did the night bring on any new theories?

Very nice thinking everyone!!!

Coming back to my stress hypothesis:

Just like rehousing, also transporting and subsequently rehousing will cause stress. What I was thinking is, the T' might get an advantage by becoming larger and more mobile if it was already in pre-moult before changing environment. That wouldn't explain the moulting of a spider which wasn't really in that stage, though...

A change of humidity might trigger a moult in a T' already in pre-moult if it felt that the conditions weren't right for its moult beforehand.

I know that trees tend to produce excessive amounts of fruits/seeds if they are stressed that season, maybe as a strategy to provide more "offspring" just in case it dies.

Moulting will be more frequent in T's that are fed a lot and kept warm than in those kept in less favourable conditions. The growth of the body will simply demand this. Mature female and maturing male T's normally would moult in spring and only once a year. This would be triggered by the change of season, be it temperature or/and humidity.

+1 Marula.

When rehousing t's you normally always place the t in a new enclosure that has optimal conditions i.e. temp and humidity. I would guess that it's instinct for them to rather moult in optimal conditions than sub-optimal conditions. They therefore go from a stressful environment/stage during rehousing to an environment that's optimal to them. being in this "perfect" environment could possibly lead to instinctive behaviour to moult or drop an eggsac.

I guess in cases where a pregnant female decides to moult rather than drop might be a factor of how stressful they experienced the rehousing to be regardless of how gentle one tries to rehouse them.

In my experience poecies tend to be very skittish, so rehousing might be more stressful to them than what think.

This is all opinion based

frootbat wrote:

So, has there been anyone to get an egg sac (from a Tarantula, Scarab) during our wintertime? If so, my argument
has no ground.

cenotaph wrote:
My P. cancerides dropped mid May last year. Not entirely winter, but close to it. She was mated October the year before, so she walked around with junk in her trunk through summer

Theory Busted ?

+1 Miss M, +1 Shinobi, +1 Froot.

@ Scarab, ever considered setting up new enclosure, live plants et al, and allowing it to settle prior to spider introduction?

We are still not any closer to what causes the differentiation between dropping sac, and molting?

TH

I have two enclosures set up and settling as we speak. They are waiting for two females to moult (in their old enclosures). I will move them into the new enclosures a week or so post moult, and introduce a male as well. These spiders are exceptionally tolerant towards males, so we will hope they settle together.

I am drifting off topic.

We are still not any closer to what causes the differentiation between dropping sac, and molting?

I agree, and would love to get a few theories on this. What has been said thus far only deals with the moult issue, but why does rehousing also sometimes trigger an egg case. For the life of me I can't agree with the stress argument when it comes to egg case production, although I agree it might trigger a moult.