Another thing to take into consideration is that a number of people will use multiple males to 'back up' their female breeders just to make sure she gets gravid. I know of one instance last year where a breeder got a clutch of all spiders in one clutch, but a later clutch had mixed spiders and normals. HOWEVER, when I asked him about it later he mentioned that he had originally had the female in with another male but hadn't witnessed any breeding, when he noticed that his spider male was breeding so strongly he switched the female over to the spider. I think it's possible that she may have bred the other male before being switched over to the the spider thereby producing a clutch of mixed paternity. The spider he was using was also a potential homozygous spider. (it's parents were both spiders) so I think its possible that a homozygous spider could have been proven already if it weren't for the practice of using multiple males.

Mark

>>Although that is a possible scenario, spiders from spider x spider breeding have been around for maybe three years? At least two breeding seasons if not more. Considering male spiders often breed by the time they are six months if there were homozygous spiders, we would have heard about them by now...either that or everyone suddenly got really good at keeping secrets...
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>>The few that were claimed, produced clutches with normals the following year. Considering you can breed one male with up to ten females, it should be simple enough to prove out a homozygous spider in one year...where are they?? (ans: homozygous lethal)

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