- Joined
- Sep 11, 2005
- Messages
- 345
Hi everyone, I learned something recently that I need to pass on to those that have bought or recieved as a freebie, from me, any A behlei (slings, juvies or adults) in the past 3 or 4 years, I have spent a little time up near Flagstaff recently and found a colony of what I initialy thought were A behlei, which I had only previously caught near Payson Az, after a few days of investigating I realized that the spiders in flagstaff were in general all alot smaller than the spiders I have been finding at the Payson site and seemed to have a bit stubbier legs, I did some reading and found that the type species of A behlei, found near the Grand Canyon ( way closer to Flag than Payson) is a smaller species with 3.5-4"" being average for a female and Ive even heard them refered to as a dwarf species. I dont realy know how many adults I put on the market exactly but if you have an adult female bought from me, then you know they are much larger than 3.5-4" probably more in the 5-5.5" range as adults.
At first I thought that the Flag spiders were just young and I just wasnt finding any adults, until about 4 days ago when 5 of the "young" females from Flag popped out sacs on the same day, I have been keeping what I thought were A behlei for 6-8 years and never seen a female as small as these with a sac and it started to click that maybe these werent the same spider at all, I talked with a freind and he told me he and his freind Dr. Ralph Charleton (a known arachnolegist: sp.) had also noticed the differances and were also looking into the possibility of these being 2 seperate species.
I have included side by side pix of 2 locale specific adult females (one from flag and one from payson) to show the size differance as well as some other random individual pix to show the differances in appearance, I havent done any measurements yet but will update with my findings when I have had a chance to document a good # of individuals from the 2 locations.
If these are 2 seprate spiders there is a good chance that any breeding attempts made may be unsucessfull unless the males are collected from the same locale as the females or come from parents that were caught in either specific location, which is the point of this post, to let folks know that if they are planning on breeding these species to get locale info on both the male and female, until something is decided on this I will lable the spiders on my pricelist as A behlei (Flagstaff) and A behlei (Payson) and I would strongly encourage other dealers to do the same, these are awsome and verry unique Aphos, both varieties have the same snotty attatude and fear of nothing, and id like to see them bred more frequently in captivity, hopefully this info helps any who may be thinking of giving the species a shot.
All I have sold or given out up to date have been of the larger (Payson) variety
Flagstaff w/sac (L) and Payson (R) spiders
Flag
Flag
View attachment 90429
Payson
View attachment 90428
Payson
View attachment 90426
At first I thought that the Flag spiders were just young and I just wasnt finding any adults, until about 4 days ago when 5 of the "young" females from Flag popped out sacs on the same day, I have been keeping what I thought were A behlei for 6-8 years and never seen a female as small as these with a sac and it started to click that maybe these werent the same spider at all, I talked with a freind and he told me he and his freind Dr. Ralph Charleton (a known arachnolegist: sp.) had also noticed the differances and were also looking into the possibility of these being 2 seperate species.
I have included side by side pix of 2 locale specific adult females (one from flag and one from payson) to show the size differance as well as some other random individual pix to show the differances in appearance, I havent done any measurements yet but will update with my findings when I have had a chance to document a good # of individuals from the 2 locations.
If these are 2 seprate spiders there is a good chance that any breeding attempts made may be unsucessfull unless the males are collected from the same locale as the females or come from parents that were caught in either specific location, which is the point of this post, to let folks know that if they are planning on breeding these species to get locale info on both the male and female, until something is decided on this I will lable the spiders on my pricelist as A behlei (Flagstaff) and A behlei (Payson) and I would strongly encourage other dealers to do the same, these are awsome and verry unique Aphos, both varieties have the same snotty attatude and fear of nothing, and id like to see them bred more frequently in captivity, hopefully this info helps any who may be thinking of giving the species a shot.
All I have sold or given out up to date have been of the larger (Payson) variety
Flagstaff w/sac (L) and Payson (R) spiders
Flag
Flag
View attachment 90429
Payson
View attachment 90428
Payson
View attachment 90426
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