Good ol' H. gigas

[pandinus]

Ok ok, i completely owe this species an apology for ever underestimating its awesomeness. the story goes that i ended up buying a p. regalis sling from a guy a few hours away from here. as a freebie he offered me a 2.5" H. gigas sling. Now i like african species just as much as the next guy, but they arent something i just go buck wild over, so i said sure i would love to take him off your hands. I had never had any experience with this species, so i did a little bit of reading, grows fast, relatively large, high humidity, loves to burrow. at this point my opinion was, oh sounds like im not going to see this guy very often but still pretty cool. ive had the guy about 2 months now and it has become one of my favorite spiders! it wasted no time in creating a huge elaborate multi chambered burrow, yet still every night sits at the entrance if shy, but more often than not travels all the way across the cage to the other side of the tank, and then bolts back to his hole whenever threatened. it molted quickly and is now about 3-3.5" and gets more active every day. a downside of this is that its becoming a bit of a challenge keeping his wait up (no roaches, just crickets, but trying to find some discoids locally) hes not thin, but i like my speed growers to always be a little plump just in case. Then the other night i was doing a search and read about instances of this species being aquatic, so i upgrade it to a larger enclosure with a very large deep water dish with a stone in it, and sure enough the first act upon entering the cage was to dive down to the bottom of the water!! i never had anything against this species, but i never thought for a second that this spider that is described as reclusive and drab colored would quickly become one of my favorite spiders! its so active, and so completely different than any other species ive ever had. on top of that, the spider is completely docile, which having dealt with other "baboons" before blew me away. ive never dealt with it with my hands before, you know just because that would be bad if something went awry, but it has never thrown up a threat, made a lightinig mad dash, and just sort of hunkers down when nudged in an attempt to herd. i feel like if i needed to, i would have no problems handling this species with my bare hand, something i cant say of any other african T ive ever had. I'm not usually one to gush like this, but i was just so astounded by this little freebie, and want to encourage others to give this species a try who havent. it may not be the most colorful T out there, but give it a short amount of time and it will steal your heart over in an instant. i have never been so pleasently suprised by a spider before.




John

 

[Hamburglar]

Cool story... have you tried giving it something to fish for yet?

 

[JESTERx626]

that was a good story, makes me want one now bro!

 

[MrRogers]

I want to get one of those and put it into a huge tank with a mini-pond so it can fish. Nice review!

 

[christian77]

I have an H. Gigas about 2" had from about a 1/2" it does make some great burrows but haven't tried to give it a swim hole yet. i'll have to give it a shot when it's time to upgrade it's tank. but I agree they are a great T to add to your collection. glad your enjoying yours so much, they are definately an under-rated species.

 

[jr47]

Mine was very active and out a lot till it reached adult then I never seen it. They are cool T's. And very quick.
Mine never got fat as alot of T's do. Her abdomen would reach a certain size and get no bigger no matter how much she ate. And never till mature would turn down a meal. I traded mine for some other T's. I bought her at just over 2 inch's and she was 7 inch's after 2 years. The growth with each molt was drastic. Wasnt keeping records and growth rates then but wish I had.
Heres a pic of her after I had her about 3 years. Her water bowl is a sheds spread container, So you can get an idea of her size.

 

[JDeRosa]

Yeah mine seems handleable.

 

[Nerri1029]

Nice thread

I have 7 of these that are about an inch now.

Looking forward to some of what you said

 

[brandi71183]

I knew that they liked to swim. But have not put a pond in for ours yet. Can't wait.

 

[G. pulchra]

For the money, they are a great African species to keep

 

[mistercurls]

Check out robc's videos of his H. Gigas enclosures. Pretty neat stuff he's got going on there.

 

[Agent Jones]

This thread is not good for my "I need more!!!1" phase. A fast-growing species.. what a dream.

 

[jr47]

The best part is watching them hunt. I dont know if all are like mine was but she would go nuts on the crickets. She at one time had her tunnel along the glass. About 1 1/2 inch of soil overhead. I put crickets in and 2 of them were digging against the glass. She got under them and set there. I wasnt expecting what happened next. She pushed up through the dirt and grabed both crickets and went back down. Totally blew my mind and made me very paranoid when I was cleaning her tank.
Later after she ate her meal she tidied up the new hole and had an extra entrance. I guess that shows how sensative they are to any little movement. I would of give anything to had that on video.