The article does not state the sex of the exuviae, and I quote:

Several times empty holes were found, usually with an exuviae. It seems that the spiders relocate after moulting.
Remnants of various insects and sometimes even scorpions have been found in the holes, so it is assumed that adult spiders can occasionally catch Scolopendra, small gecko (most often Pristurus) or Ablepharus.

It fascinates me because I can't logically fathom what the cause would be. If one could understand this better (in my case with a specific blue-ish arboreal which moulted 18 hours after re-location) one could possibly induce egg laying rather than a moult. I fully understand the entire instar business and that a spider MUST continue its life cycle. I also understand that in Poecilotheria, "pre-moult" is not that obvious, but the female that pissed me off was mated and had a seemingly very short instar. She moulted 18 hours after re-location.

WHY?

If we can find the answers to that, I am sure it would leave a whole lot hair more on some of the breeders' heads...

Any Zoologists around that knows more about the eccdysis process in Theraposids?

TH

Ok well since I couldn’t think of anything else i searched the net to see what Socotra's yearly climate is and any sudden changes that may occur.

Now everyone has heard of animals knowing of extreme weather changes before they happen and then moving away from that area or to a safer area.

Now I am wondering , these species are borrowing but there has been suggestions that they are also semi arboreal.( like obt's)

what are the odds that the t's knowing that there is going to be n monsoon, leave there burrows and move into trees, or just somewhere higher up for safty,for the time of the monsoon and then these that don’t survive obviously don’t return to their burrows?

I have no idée why they would find abandoned burrows,Unless the duke and louitjie is correct about the males. so i thought of reasons why t's would leave their burrows.

And this is the only somewhat viable reason i could come up with.

Any thoughts?

@animal.

Angel is studying zoology, might want to give her a shot.

Dont know wht she knows of theraphosidae, but i guess its worth a shot.

The relocation could be linked to a couple of things:
1- As there's not a great number of this species mature adults might go in search of better housing closer to other not only the males but females that has been in hiding in the fear of bigger spiders.
2- Looking at what all was found in the burrows they don 't live very clean and after a while need to find a clean house.
3- Before moulting the old burrow might be to cramped and a new bigger burrow for their new size needs to be build.
4- Females getting ready for breeding needs lots of extra room to build her nest, and looking after the young, for she'll need to baby sit for quite some time.
5- There is lots of speculation that this is a communal spider and odds are good that mature females group together, not only for safety in numbers but finding a mate and probably more than just one mate increases her fertility.

I know, I mailed her already.

We were having a similar discussion the other night.

TH