With "original" I presume you are referring to the first one this female made earlier this year? Except for the five in the communal, the rest have found new homes. The egg sac that this female constructed this week is her second for the season, and will be her last because I will not break this nest and/or remove the young at all. They are going to stay with her until they willingly leave the nest and start their own.

The time span between them hatching and them leaving the nest is what I still need to complete my writings... it is crucial that this happens naturally.

Oh, she will either close the nest to make a sac, or not at all. In this case, the sac is clearly visible. She will not close it off now. If she had a proper burrow, she would seal that off and only bring the young out on second instar, but once she made a sac in an "open" burrow, it will remain open.

By "open" I am referring to a nest that is not underground. It is not entirely outside the nest, just not sealed with webbing and substrate. It is possible that she might web some at the entrance if to much light or movement is detected, but she will not use substrate to construct a "door" as she would when underground.

The fact that she made a sac in this way convinces me that she is comfortable with her surroundings...

Very exciting update. How many Mature Monocentropus balfouri (Socotra Island Blue Baboon) Male and Female do you think your big communal enclosure can keep?

The problem one will face in a communal of this nature is that the spiders will expel an exuvium from the nest after a molt, but one would never be sure from which spider the exuvium is. Only when mature males start wondering in search of females will I be able to remove males as required, leaving the females to maintain their nests... I think it would be safe to say the ideal would be four mature females... each with their young... and so on and so on...

Although not the female in the communal, this might illustrate "the bond"...



The female in the communal with her new sac. (Not her best side.) Once her babies hatch, I hope to see a lot of the picture above...

Truly amazing

A fantastic update Scarab. I would like to say I hope all goes well but it seems hope has nothing to do with it and it is just naturally going to go well anyway.

You have single handedly opened the eyes of quite a few people including myself and your findings are truly great.

For my own situation, I have 6 M.balfouri currently in my local post office as I missed the delivery yesterday. They are all 2 cm slings and I'm hoping to get them in together on Monday evening. The only thing I'm not too sure about is introducing my single sling as well as it has been with me for a couple of months living by itself..... This is a decision I will give some serious thought to.

I am more frequent on a British forum and was hoping to start my own M.balfouri thread very much in the same vain as this one and would like to know if I could reference some of your own findings (with credit where it is due of course)?

On a slightly different note, I started a colony of 13 P.murinus last week which I am watching with baited breath. They have all hidden themselves away and I expect a loss or two but from what I have read it should work out ok

Thanks,
Kris