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•  To the English summary
•  Abstract and table of contents
•   1 Introduction
•   2 Method and procedure
•   3 Results: Sloughing intervals, Raise of weight, mortality rate
•   4 Discussion of the experimental results and realisations for the breed
•   Bibliography and source of the pictures
•   Books about tarantulas and related topics.
•   Links to other tarantula pages and pages with similar topics.
•   The whole “Youth Researches” work in one piece
         ... naturally takes some longer time to be loaded

 My name is Simon C. Frank,
 I am 22 years old
 and I live in Birkenfeld near Pforzheim and inTübingen.
 I am studying Biology in Tübingen.

I have written the following elaboration for the purposes of the competition “Youth Researches”. I participated thereby in 18 and 19 February 1998 in the regional competition Nordbaden in Mannheim.

Brief summary

Due to often very insufficient information about the optimal breeding temperature of tarantulas, I placed myself the questions: Which temperature is the most suitable? And which advantages will this knowledge provide for the breed of tarantulas? After successful mating, building of cocoon and slip of approx. 500 young tarantulas I put a great extent of them separately into small plastic containers and formed 3 groups of 30 animals each.

• Group 1 I placed on a approx. 30° C warm heating mat for 24 hours.
• Group 2 got alternating temperature, 20°C for 12 hours, then 30°C for 12 hours.
• Group 3 lived 24 hours a day with 20°C.

I weighed now, after each sloughing, always 10 spiders from the respective group and formed the average from these weighing results. I entered these results together with the sloughing intervals into a diagram. On the basis of this diagram and other recordings one can conclude, which living conditions are optimal for young tarantulas.

It was shown that contrary to frequent recommendations in the literature about tarantulas, an evenly warm temperature leads to a better growth than the often recommended nocturnal temperature reduction. Additionally the mortality rate is somewhat higher at varying temperatures.

On the other hand my experiments showed that a constant temperature of 30°C, is rather somewhat too much, although this corresponds to the natural daytime temperatures in the tropical homelands of the tarantulas. A constant temperature of 30°C increased the mortality rate of the little animals.

That is why I recommend, to keep the tarantulas at an even temperature of approx.. 27° - 28° C. Naturally this temperature specification must be co-ordinated with the respective type.

When we see the differences in the growth of the animals in the individual groups, we can imagine well, that it is possible to let animals of different gender let become sexually mature at the same time, which is not possible under "normal" conditions. Thus it would be possible to mate animals from one cocoon and so assure the breed of rare types of tarantulas.

Table of contents

• Table of contents
• Acknowledgements
• Abstract (brief summary)

1 introduction

• 1.1 General information about tarantulas
• 1.2 Danger from tarantulas
• 1.3 Nutrition
• 1.4 Sloughing and growth
• 1.5 Reproduction
• 1.6 Question

2 Method and strategics

• 2.1 The object
• 2.2 Mating
• 2.3 Building of the cocoons and development of the eggs
• 2.4 Experimental setup

3 Results

• 3.1 Tables and diagrams
  • 3.1.1 Result outline
  • 3.1.2 Diagram
  • 3.1.3 Results in short
• 3.2 Summary
  • 3.2.1 Sloughing intervals
  • 3,2,2 Increase in weight
  • 3.2.3. Mortality rate
• 3.3 Analysis

4 Discussion

• 4.1 Feeding problems
• 4.2 Discussion of the experimental results
  • 4.2.1 Nocturnal temperature reduction
  • 4.2.2 Comparison to nature
  • 4.2.3 Interpretation
  • 4.2.4 Temperature and increase in weight
  • 4.2.5 Temperature and mortality rate
  • 4.2.6 Temperature and RGT rule
• 4.3 Answer of the question
• 4.4 Realisations for the breed

Bibliography
Source of the pictures

Acknowledgements

I want to express my special thanks to

• The company Inovan GmbH and Co. KG
  Industriestraße 44
  75217 Birkenfeld
           who allowed me to weigh my tarantula babies during their growth
           with their gold balance exactly on 1/100.000 grams,
           as often I wanted to weigh

• The company Witte & Sutor GmbH
  Steinberger Straße 2
  71540 Murrhardt/Württ.
           who delivered me the electrical warming trays needed for my experiments partly free of charge,
           partly at a reduced price.

"My largest tarantula". ;-)

Back to the German Starting Page

©  Copyright   Simon C. Frank 1998
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