# Inverts from Panama! need ID please :)



## AlexG (Feb 13, 2008)

Hi everyone! I came back last night from a 13 days trip to Panama to join a friend for some herping and carnaval!

I haven't found much snakes...but the inverts were their for my own enjoyment! 
I have been herping with a friend of mine in Metropolitano NP and Soberania NP

We saw a whole load of spiders off all kinds, but now I need to know what kind they are so here are the pics!

I will start with the Tarantulas and then the true spiders!

We found 3 of these really small, like ¾of an inche!





One like that





one like that too






We found at least 10 tarantulas wholes and wa manage to make at least 4 to come out fishing for them with a really thin stick!! this one wat under a rock, the 2 rocks next where both Pheunotria's hides! awesome spiders but I gotta be honnest they are a little scary when you hold it with 10'' long tweezers lol 








and now true spider photos 
here is the first and biggest Pheunotria I found! 












some other Pheunotria??





an other kind of wandering spider






some kind of fishing spider?? they it was the most commun specie near the little water streams!






Some kind of wolf spider!







and my favorite! some kind of Spiny spider! 






a cute pink spider found at night!






now other inverts!!

An amblypigs






Centruroides limbatus (I think)






Blabera gigantea






Some kind of big pink cricket!






Leafcutter ants






Ok thats pretty much it... got enought!?!?!?

if you think to know some of the species I showed you feel free to let me know please!!! 

Thanks!

Alex


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## AlainL (Feb 13, 2008)

Hi Alex,

great pix:clap: 

I have no idea what they are but I think Martin will love the first one.
The last tarantula look a bit like a Grammostola iheringi.

If Martin can't help you for id maybe this can help:

http://books.google.com/books?id=HU...WJVmw&sig=pVmoGs1fwhm1WM1W4JsLp56s7rA#PPP1,M1


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## tarcan (Feb 13, 2008)

Alex,

You should post these in the field trip section as here, only Canadian members will see them, so you willonly get a limited number of guesses.

Martin


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## AlexG (Feb 13, 2008)

hahahah tu les connais bien les gouts de Martin c'Est effectivement ça préférée 

Thx for the tip I havent noticed the field forum...:? 

Alex


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## Stefan2209 (Feb 13, 2008)

AlexG said:


> this one wat under a rock, the 2 rocks next where both Pheunotria's hides! awesome spiders but I gotta be honnest they are a little scary when you hold it with 10'' long tweezers lol


Yeah,

and you´re my new and very personally hero that you´ve been brave enough nevertheless to deal with that man-eating-Phoneutria´s of Panama. :wall: 

Oh..., well, before i get into real details...

To actual knowledge there´s just one species out of this genus found in Panama: Phoneutria boliviensis....

...which is NOT known to be of significant toxicity....

.... and which was captured by myself with bare hands without any problems in the past.

Like i said: my personal hero - giving my darlings a bad name here, shame on you!



> here is the first and biggest Pheunotria I found!


Like i said: let´s get into details old friend:

This is NO Phoneutria at all.  



> some other Pheunotria??


Nope. Picture quality is bad - but definitely NO Phoneutria again.   



> some kind of fishing spider?? they it was the most commun specie near the little water streams!


Trechaleidae spp.

Your "supposed to be Phoneutria" are in fact members of the genus Ancylometes.
Calm, peaceful, primarily terrestrial spiders that are absolutely harmless to humans.

Check my very own picture threads of Ancylometes and "real" Phoneutria for your very own consideration if you like.

Regards,

Stefan

P.S. One word of advise: given your knowledge about Ctenidae..., leave them alone, if you should ever happen to encounter them in the woods again.
Not every Phoneutria species is equally toxic or even defensive, anyway, if you should happen to run into one of the hotter species your lil tweezers won´t keep them off you for as long as even half of a second if they decide to get interest in your taste.


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## cacoseraph (Feb 13, 2008)

Stefan2209 said:


> Like i said: my personal hero - *giving my darlings a bad name here, shame on you!*
> 
> [...]
> 
> ...


so are we supposed to be afraid of them or not, Steffan?  in your rush to prove you are the pho man you sent out a bit of a mixed message


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## brandontmyers (Feb 13, 2008)

I think the scorpion is a dark form of either C. gracilis or C. margaritatus. I do not think C. limbatus occurs there.


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## Snakeman4life (Feb 13, 2008)

My guess for the Theraphosid with the reddish abdomen(pic # 4 from the top) would be some sort of Sericopelma sp.


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## arachyd (Feb 13, 2008)

As different as they look the spider(s) in pics 11 to 13 and the one in pic 14 are orb weavers in the family Araneidae. The spiny one looks like a Gasteracantha


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## skinheaddave (Feb 13, 2008)

Lokal said:


> I think the scorpion is a dark form of either C. gracilis or C. margaritatus. I do not think C. limbatus occurs there.


You are correct in that C.limbatus does not occur there.  It is definitely not C.margaritatus, though, and I don't like it for C.gracilis.  My guess is that it is a species of Tityus -- there are a couple of uniformly black species that exist in Panama. 

Cheers,
Dave


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## lucanidae (Feb 13, 2008)

The spiny orb weaver is genus Micrathena.


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## driver (Feb 14, 2008)

that spiny orbweaver is awesome!


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## AlexG (Feb 15, 2008)

Thanks a lot for your help identifying somes them, I might of been ''too'' courageous with your ''darlings'', I appreciate your help, but I dont think we have the same kind of humour, but thx anyway!

thanks dave for the scorpion ID honestly I had some hardtime thinking it was a Centruroides coz of its pretty big size! are Tityus are supposed to get bigger than most Centruroides?
and btw what is the story about the points? 

Have a good day everyone

Alex


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## spydrhunter1 (Feb 15, 2008)

The pink "cricket" is actually a Tettigoniidae (long horned grasshopper), this family includes the familiar katydids. They are occasionally found in this weird pink color throughout their range including some U.S. specimens.


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## GoTerps (Feb 15, 2008)

I'm sorry for you having to listen to the one pompous comment above, but thank you very much for sharing your photos.

The 3rd spider pictured shares the overall habitus of a _Metriopelma_ species.

The 1st and 2nd pictures look like a group of closely related theraphosids found in northeastern SA and central america.  

There's a picture of that 1st theraphosid (or one that looks identical at least) online somewhere, but I can't find it right now.

Eric


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## froggyman (Feb 15, 2008)

those leafcutter ants are really cool


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## drapion (Feb 15, 2008)

skinheaddave said:


> You are correct in that C.limbatus does not occur there.  It is definitely not C.margaritatus, though, and I don't like it for C.gracilis.  My guess is that it is a species of Tityus -- there are a couple of uniformly black species that exist in Panama.
> 
> Cheers,
> Dave


Centruroides limbatus does exist in Northern Panama, but this scorp looks like a female Tityus species to me.


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## Stefan2209 (Feb 16, 2008)

cacoseraph said:


> so are we supposed to be afraid of them or not, Steffan?  in your rush to prove you are the pho man you sent out a bit of a mixed message


Hi Caco,

i don´t see myself as "pho man", nor as "Ancylometes guy", nor as any kind of authority at all in this field.
What i see is, that there are since years hours and more hours spent from my side and also from other persons, some of them "in the background", some of them also active in these boards to supply "correct" and easy to understand information (like pictures) about the questioned genera´s.

Unfortunately, most people just seem to make no use of this. It´d have been quite easy in this very case to rule Phoneutria out, just by taking a very short look into distribution patterns or even through running  a picture comparison that can be found in these very boards.
The markings on the femora are quite distinct for Ancylometes and can be seen in my very own pictures.
There´s no rocket-scientist needed to do so. I just very recently said this in another thread: lazyness, not making use of already distributed information.
This lazyness now leads to another "wrong ID éd" specimen.

But it´s more easy and of course more "audience attractive" to just jump to Phoneutria and at the very same time add emotionally negative adjectives to it. Based on what? Apparently the spider hasn´t even attempted to wave a threat display, let alone attempt or even succeed in attacking.
All piping into the same old horn: Phoneutria is scary, aggressive, dangerous, yakyakyak...

You, and i refer to just every single person in this case, are supposed to make up your mind about the following:

When you encounter a spider you can´t identify by yourself with same certaintity it´s just a matter of choice - leave it alone or deal with it, in whatever way.
If you choose the latter, there´s always the remote possibility to get tagged, this could happen with Phoneutria, as it could happen with many other species from many other genera.
If you get tagged, is it the fault of the spider or is it your very own, because you choose to manipulate the spider?

I speak out of personal experience here and guess especially YOU can relate here: i have handled spiders in the wild.
I was aware of the risk and took it by full intent, because i wanted to see how they reacted. I knew and was fully aware of the fact that i might easily get tagged, i accepted it. - Anyway, it didn´t happen, the spiders have been nice to me.  

What do you think, given this background, how much i like people who go out, deal with spiders, are treated in a nice way by these very spiders and then nevertheless construct statements that make other people think the spiders would be something like dangerous on their own.

Best advise simply stated about Phoneutria especially is:

Leave them alone. 
If you ever encounter a spider in the wild that you suspect to be Phoneutria, take a look at them, take pictures if you like, but stay safe, don´t bother them if you are not 100% sure what you are doing (e.g. massive experience with living specimens of this genus).
If you choose to not follow this advise, be it, it´s your choice, but if anything should happen, *don´t blame it to the spider*, have the honesty to blame it to yourself.

Keep one thing in mind: those things are fast - very simple put.
You´ll find Sparassidae to be fast, but you can´t imagine how fast Phoneutria can move if they decide to have a go. 
You may be aware that i have "a bit" of experience with these, this said, i have not the slightest problem with openly announcing that not even with this experience even i stand the slightest chance to avoid an attack of an angry specimen if i´m in a distance shorter than 1m (3 feet) and there´s no solid barrier between me and the spider. Those things are just faster than thought if they want.

I´m really worried about people who are not aware of this, deal with the spiders anyway, get tagged in the process and blame it once again to the spider.

I got never bitten so far. I take this due to a mixture of myself being cautious and the spiders being nicer than one may think.
This is NOT meant to be understand like those can´t be dangerous, but it´s mainly depending on how you treat them.

If you´d ask me, because of personal experience, if i, personally, would go out and bother a species like P. fera with tweezers...
Hell, no. It´s for sure a good method to get yourself in trouble, as things like tweezers are just a very comfortable kind of "bridge" for the spider if it wants to.
Note: i especially address this very species here, because this is another not too unimportant aspect. There are massive differences in behaviour between different species from different genera.
I touched some species i found in the wild with bare hands and was quite comfortable with it, including Phoneutria and also Ancylometes.
I encountered one other species, though, that i didn´t dare to touch, even though it was a pretty small one, looking very inconspicously (spelling:8o ?). I had kept that species before in captivity and had to learn it would sometimes attack lightning fast without any prior warning. The toxicity of that (unidentified) species could not be foreseen, so why risk it?

Regards,

Stefan


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## JColt (Feb 16, 2008)

Man that must have been an awesome trip. Thanks for the photos. Cant help you identify but nice share


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