Chester Zoo made the announcement of the births in a press release August 8, and before long social media took over the story as tarantula lovers worldwide spread the news via Twitter posts.
Montserrat is a small island located in the Leeward Islands and is part of a chain called the Lesser Antilles in the British West Indies. Montserrat is about 16 km (10 mi) long and 11 km (7 mi) wide, Montserrat is nicknamed the Emerald Isle of the Caribbean because of its resemblance to coastal Ireland and for the Irish ancestry of many of its inhabitants.
Montserrat is home to many rare and exotic plant and animal species. The Montserrat tarantulas are a very rare species and found only on this one island. As such, very little is known about these creatures. Actually, a formal description of the species dates back one hundred years ago, based on a single male specimen collected at that time.
The Chester Zoo says that in 2013, twelve of the hairy brown spiders were brought back to England by a zookeeper after observing them in the wild on numerous field trips. Then came three years of studying their behavior and learning how best to manage the creatures.
The results of the zoo’s patient persistence paid off with one female producing about 200 British-borne little spiderlings. “It’s kind of a race against time, whether you can synchronize the sexual maturity between individuals,” said Chester Zoo’s curator of lower vertebrates, Gerardo Garcia.
Of the dozen 15 to 20 centimeter (6 to 8 inch) tarantulas brought back from Montserrat, only a few were males. One of the very first things learned about the spiders was that the males had a lifespan of only about 2.5 years, while the females developed more slowly and lived much longer.
Learning about the shortened lives of the males made them all the more precious, especially when it came to breeding the little fellows with the females. That in itself caused some nervous moments with the zookeepers. Apparently, like many vertebrates, sexual encounters with females can be a little risky for the males.
“The female can take it as a prey, rather than a partner,” Dr. Garcia told the BBC. “There were a lot of sweaty moments.” He also described the mating ritual, which was rather interesting.
It starts out very tentative with the male beating out an elaborate rhythm on the female’s web, which is spun on the ground near her burrow. Dr. Garcia said that even after three successful sexual encounters, the zookeepers still had an anxious wait of several months because the three females disappeared into their burrows.
“They literally dig a burrow in the ground, and they’re gone,” he said. “They don’t feed, they don’t show up, we don’t know what’s going on. You just have to leave it for several months and see what happens.”
But much to everyone’s delight, little spiders started popping out of the soil. “From one single burrow, one female, we had about 200 tarantulas – tiny spiderlings.”
“We’re keeping them in small, individual pots,” Dr Garcia said. “A member of staff is feeding them one-by-one with small flies, at the beginning. Then we’ll go for bigger prey like crickets.” In a couple of years, the spiders hatched this month will have become part of a breeding program at the zoo as staff continues to learn even more about the life cycle of this unusual and rare tarantula.
