Campi95
Arachnosquire
- Joined
- May 8, 2017
- Messages
- 97
Hey everybody. Gather around for a long read, but I promise this story has a happy ending.
A couple months ago I ran into this specimen while visiting the Yale Peabody museum of natural history.
Experienced keepers will know what the problem is right away but for anyone who is just starting: this is what it looks like when you have a tarantula kept with online caresheets. The substrate was wood chips (poor thing even webbed one spot over and stayed there, as if trying to avoid touching it). Her water dish was a wet tissue. Her hide was a crumpled cardboard. She seemed dehydrated and quite stressed.
Obviously what went through my mind was what is going through all of yours. “Why would they keep it in such horrible conditions?” I had no clue, so I struck some conversations with the volunteers staffing the discovery room. After 20 minutes of “oh no. Poor thing” I quickly discovered that they just had bad information, and since the little trooper had made it for over a year like that they assumed it was okay.
So I got to work. First off, who are we talking about? The volunteers only knew “female Haitian something”. I got ahold of her last molt and lo and behold, Harriet is Harry. They had assumed it was a female because “males only live a year”. I explained them that that year only starts counting AFTER they mature. The species dilemma would be harder. The mention of Haitian immediately had me thinking p. cancerides, however the strength of the urticating hairs when I handled the molt coupled with the pinkish hues I could see on the specimen had me thinking more towards a lasiodora sp. We are still not 100% sure on the species.
Next was to fix her enclosure. I contacted the curator, who was the only member of staff with a key to Harry’s enclosure. I politely let him know that the requirements for keeping a tarantula was very different than what was being used and volunteered my help in ensuring this specimen lasted them for a longer time.
We got together and added some lightly damp peat moss to the bottom of the enclosure, raising up the substrate level. I then poured leftover coco fiber, changed her water dish, and gave her a cork bark hide with some added plastic plants for decor.
That picture is Harry now. He looks happier and is settling into his new home, and has a fresh water dish on the corner. After talks with the curator, I decided to volunteer to have one of my adult specimens rotate on display on the science room for a couple weeks at a time. We are in talks to have an event focused only on arachnids and have several others from my collection displayed that day for the kids to see the variety. The first visitor is Blu my adult GBB female. My amazing girlfriend even made her a little sheet that answers some of the commonly asked questions that the kids have when looking at the tarantulas.
I also left them a copy of “The Tarantula Keeper’s Guide” by Stan Schultz, so the volunteers will have more material to answer the questions kids are asking.
The reason I am sharing this story is because as keepers, we are these creatures best ambassadors. It may sometimes seem easier to vilify people or educational institutions that have subpar husbandry, but it is often worth the time and effort to reach out to whoever is in charge and in a respectful manner encourage them to take better care of their animals.
A lot of times these people do care but have been provided the wrong information.
A couple months ago I ran into this specimen while visiting the Yale Peabody museum of natural history.
Experienced keepers will know what the problem is right away but for anyone who is just starting: this is what it looks like when you have a tarantula kept with online caresheets. The substrate was wood chips (poor thing even webbed one spot over and stayed there, as if trying to avoid touching it). Her water dish was a wet tissue. Her hide was a crumpled cardboard. She seemed dehydrated and quite stressed.
Obviously what went through my mind was what is going through all of yours. “Why would they keep it in such horrible conditions?” I had no clue, so I struck some conversations with the volunteers staffing the discovery room. After 20 minutes of “oh no. Poor thing” I quickly discovered that they just had bad information, and since the little trooper had made it for over a year like that they assumed it was okay.
So I got to work. First off, who are we talking about? The volunteers only knew “female Haitian something”. I got ahold of her last molt and lo and behold, Harriet is Harry. They had assumed it was a female because “males only live a year”. I explained them that that year only starts counting AFTER they mature. The species dilemma would be harder. The mention of Haitian immediately had me thinking p. cancerides, however the strength of the urticating hairs when I handled the molt coupled with the pinkish hues I could see on the specimen had me thinking more towards a lasiodora sp. We are still not 100% sure on the species.
Next was to fix her enclosure. I contacted the curator, who was the only member of staff with a key to Harry’s enclosure. I politely let him know that the requirements for keeping a tarantula was very different than what was being used and volunteered my help in ensuring this specimen lasted them for a longer time.
We got together and added some lightly damp peat moss to the bottom of the enclosure, raising up the substrate level. I then poured leftover coco fiber, changed her water dish, and gave her a cork bark hide with some added plastic plants for decor.
That picture is Harry now. He looks happier and is settling into his new home, and has a fresh water dish on the corner. After talks with the curator, I decided to volunteer to have one of my adult specimens rotate on display on the science room for a couple weeks at a time. We are in talks to have an event focused only on arachnids and have several others from my collection displayed that day for the kids to see the variety. The first visitor is Blu my adult GBB female. My amazing girlfriend even made her a little sheet that answers some of the commonly asked questions that the kids have when looking at the tarantulas.
I also left them a copy of “The Tarantula Keeper’s Guide” by Stan Schultz, so the volunteers will have more material to answer the questions kids are asking.
The reason I am sharing this story is because as keepers, we are these creatures best ambassadors. It may sometimes seem easier to vilify people or educational institutions that have subpar husbandry, but it is often worth the time and effort to reach out to whoever is in charge and in a respectful manner encourage them to take better care of their animals.
A lot of times these people do care but have been provided the wrong information.
