Yer that maybe, but its not right if the offspring are infertile and only brought together because man wants them to be. In the wild is natural, can't argue or change that... in captivity its wrong.

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Oh no, I dont really agree with captive hybridisation - but more because I dont trust people to label hybrids correctly. I wouldnt like to try hybrids myself (in spiders - plants are great).

However, it might become increasingly more commonplace as captivity increases; its a good way to introduce variation (and a great way to reduce it, but it can go both ways). Put it this way; many of the original WC spiders are now protected - they have been successivey inbreed from a small sample population for nearly 15 years in some cases. Thats a lot of heterozygosity lost (in inbreeding, recessive mutations become expressed far more often than in the wild where they are breed out of a population due to selection).

However, fertile/infertile is hard to judge just looking at two species (well, I certainly cant judge it!).

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Brachypelma albopilosum (Charlotte)
B. Schroederi (slings)
Grammostola sp. "North" Northern gold
G. aurerostriata (slings)
Cyclosternum fasciatum (slings)

Member of the BAS and AAS.

Thanks everyone

I dont agree with deliberately hybridising but I had no choice with my male. He is here so obviously it happens in captivity although probably done through someone choosing to. Hybrids in the wild/nature happen for whatever reason. Mother nature is an amazing force

I do think though that since there are hybrid tarantula's in the hobby they should maybe be studied to gain better insight into how they work and the problems faced by cross breeding (apart from diluting pure bred bloodlines). At the moment not much is really known about hybrid T's but more info may come out in the future. Mine isnt the only one out there and there is already a possibility that his siblings may be bred in the future by someone that doesnt realise their spider isnt pure bred. There is also no way of knowing if my male is the product of a first cross between albopilosum and vagans or if he is a generation or two further down the road.

I'm quite lucky really that I realised when he was still relatively small that he was unlike other Brachypelma's so with each moult more characteristics have shown up. I wont be breeding from him and further adding to the problem but will be watching as he matures for any unusual characteristics that may tell me something.

Thanks everyone (especially GRB) for your input. Its been interesting so please feel free to add anything further.

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My T's0.0.10 A.versicolor0.1.1 A.bicegoi0.0.1 A.purpurea0.0.2 A.cf purpurea0.0.2 A.azuraklaasi1.0.2 A.peru purple0.0.5 A.Amazonica0.0.11 A.sp fasciculata0.0.1 A.braunshauseni0.0.2 A. metallica0.1.1 A.Kwitara river1.1.0 B.klaasi1.0.0 B.smithi0.0.2 B.schroederi0.0.2 B.albiceps0.1.0 B.boehmei0.0.1 B.emilia0.1.0 B.verdezi0.0.1 C.cyaneopubescens1.0.2 E.truculentus0.0.1 E.Montane0.0.1 E.vulpinus0.0.1 G.aureostriata1.0.1 G.iheringi1.0.0 G.rosea0.0.2 G.pulchra0.2.0 G.grossa0.1.0 G.alticeps0.0.1 G.North1.0.0 G. sp.formosa0.0.1 H.gigas0.0.1 H.lividum0.0.2 L.polycuspulatus0.0.1 L.parahybana0.0.10 P.cambridgei0.0.1 P.miranda0.0.1 T.apophysis0.0.2 X.immanis0.0.2 Y.Koh samui

No worries, its nice to know that my university loan is actually doing something I agree with your stance; breeding would be fairly unneccessary.

The one thing I would say its that this talk of "pure bred" bloodlines (including on the ATS forums) is not really true. The lines might be pure bred, but I can imagine the state of the genetics is awful. We need some diversity! Especially with some of the CB only spiders - I am not a fan of WC, but a few dozen every 5 years or so would do a lot to help the current population. I always wonder if the amount of sudden tarantula death syndrome cases and wet moults have anything to do with excessive inbreeding....

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Brachypelma albopilosum (Charlotte)
B. Schroederi (slings)
Grammostola sp. "North" Northern gold
G. aurerostriata (slings)
Cyclosternum fasciatum (slings)

Member of the BAS and AAS.

You might have a point about the inbreeding in captivity GRB. I've found over the years that dog breeds here in the UK are getting more and more unhealthy and this is probably due to the small gene pool. Its always good to bring in some outside lines to help combat some of the problems that inbreeding can cause.

I know of a German Shepherd breeder that often takes his bitches to Germany to be mated and he has some of the healthiest dogs I've seen in a long time.

As for T's, well WC individuals have their place but only if done in moderation so as not to decimate the wild populations. I have 5 known WC's here and maybe more that I dont know about. Further down the line, if I mate my WC female to a CB or WC male then thats adding new blood into the lines so can only better them.

Hopefully in the future some studies will be done on inbreeding in T's.

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My T's0.0.10 A.versicolor0.1.1 A.bicegoi0.0.1 A.purpurea0.0.2 A.cf purpurea0.0.2 A.azuraklaasi1.0.2 A.peru purple0.0.5 A.Amazonica0.0.11 A.sp fasciculata0.0.1 A.braunshauseni0.0.2 A. metallica0.1.1 A.Kwitara river1.1.0 B.klaasi1.0.0 B.smithi0.0.2 B.schroederi0.0.2 B.albiceps0.1.0 B.boehmei0.0.1 B.emilia0.1.0 B.verdezi0.0.1 C.cyaneopubescens1.0.2 E.truculentus0.0.1 E.Montane0.0.1 E.vulpinus0.0.1 G.aureostriata1.0.1 G.iheringi1.0.0 G.rosea0.0.2 G.pulchra0.2.0 G.grossa0.1.0 G.alticeps0.0.1 G.North1.0.0 G. sp.formosa0.0.1 H.gigas0.0.1 H.lividum0.0.2 L.polycuspulatus0.0.1 L.parahybana0.0.10 P.cambridgei0.0.1 P.miranda0.0.1 T.apophysis0.0.2 X.immanis0.0.2 Y.Koh samui

Yeah I agree that WC can sometimes be overkill - i'd hate to see another exoticpets.co.uk spring up (god I hate them). Just a couple of dozen individuals every 5-10 years would do lots for the population. I've seen it done in wild plant populations, or fish stocks and it can often increase genetic variation by quite a lot.

You can probably alleviate the problem in the short term by breeding T's from different areas - whilst they will still belong to the original shipment of them (or founder population really), its probably less detrimental to mix things up a bit. I guess what i'm saying is that if everyone in Manchester breeds T's from Manchester, its more detrimental than someone in Man. breeding with a T bred in Fife for example. They will still show inbreeding, but it will hopefully be to a lesser extent than the "Manchester" population.

If you think about captive T's as a bunch of descrete populations isolated by geography, you can understand how breeding could be worsened by people not travelling far to breed their T's. Ok, there is still a finite number of genes (and variation) in the overall UK population, but it will be worse if you then artificially split that population into even smaller breeding units based around counties for example. By simply extending how far you source a mating T from, you could probably help the genetics significantly. Then again, with all the travel these days, you could be mating with siblings that just happen to have been sold to someone 400 miles away!

Anyway, it was interesting to see this hybrid male, it's the first real photograph of one i've come across. I thought it was mainly a US thing to want hybrids (although most do oppose it).

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Brachypelma albopilosum (Charlotte)
B. Schroederi (slings)
Grammostola sp. "North" Northern gold
G. aurerostriata (slings)
Cyclosternum fasciatum (slings)

Member of the BAS and AAS.