Titan's new wife

[Rev. Redmond Farrier]

After a whirlwind engagement of about 2 minutes (the time it took to get from my mv setup to my house) Titan is now sharing a home with his new wife, Dinah. While it is an arranged marriage and she is nearly twice his size, I have hopes that they will have a fruitful relationship and produce many offspring.

Seriously though, this is the first live female I have caught and only the second live D. tityus I have ever seen. I am quite thrilled to have found her in my own backyard. My arms are covered in little red spots from her claws because I carried her back by hand since my container was already taken up by 2 of the biggest cicadas I have ever seen. I only bothered with the one container since things have been so slow at the light the past few nights and I didn't have high hopes.

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[jackblack]

Nice pic Rev,
But you should always be prepared for the unexpected when it comes to insects , too many times I have set off for a night search spotlighting and run out of containers , now I take a pillowcase full with me , even a short stroll in my rainforet I can fill them , often I go for a short walk and it ends up much longer than expected, as nature sings her marvelous song .

[Rev. Redmond Farrier]

I seem to have a little problem. Titan is very interested in mating with Dinah, but she wants nothing to do with him. I have seen him try to mount her several times, but she keeps kicking him off. Is there anything I can do to help things along, or is it a lost cause between these two? I was really hoping to raise a few of these guys, but Dinah is not wanting to cooperate.

[poisonarrow]

I think it is very likely that she has already mated with some wild males, hence the lack of interest. From my experience it is almost impossible to find unmated female insects in the wild. Unless you take them out ofr their cocoon :-)