# Tarantula Life Expectancy



## BRavorius (Feb 2, 2008)

Can anyone link or give any factual information about life expectancy of Tarantulas? I've heard females can live up to 30-40 years, is that true?


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## Mushroom Spore (Feb 2, 2008)

What species are you asking about? They do vary wildly.


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## Brian S (Feb 2, 2008)

"Tarantulas" is a pretty general term you are using here. Which species are you talking about?


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## fang333999 (Feb 2, 2008)

yeah od like to know about how long mine would live. its a chilean rose, and im pretty sure its a female


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## Brian S (Feb 2, 2008)

fang333999 said:


> yeah od like to know about how long mine would live. its a chilean rose, and im pretty sure its a female


Chances are you have a wild caught animal that it is impossible to know how old it is. It might be on its last leg or it might go on for another 10-20 years. Without knowing how old it is, there is really no way of knowing


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## Mushroom Spore (Feb 2, 2008)

fang333999 said:


> yeah od like to know about how long mine would live. its a chilean rose, and im pretty sure its a female


You'd have to know how old it is first, and you can't know that unless you were there when it was born. Tarantulas' aging process is determined by how many molts they've had, and THAT is determined by temperature and how much they're fed. For the same reason, nobody can tell you how much longer it might be around.

Wild-caught tarantulas, which pretty much all adult G. rosea are, could be ten years old or fifty.

You can maximize the length of its life by keeping to a lean diet and not keeping it too hot (in other words, room temperature is fine).


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## Merfolk (Feb 2, 2008)

It might be true for slow growing desert species like Aphonopelma, Brachypelma, Grammostola and others. I never saw an animal that old myself but they sure exist. But a lifespan between 20 and 30 years is already astonishing.

Theraphosa, Acanthoscurria are more around 20 years, Pokies around 15 yrs ,
Avics between 8-10 years. The bottom of the list seems to be male OBTs and some dwarf species (someone correct me over this one).


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## Venom (Feb 2, 2008)

See this thread:

http://www.arachnoboards.com/ab/showthread.php?t=115508


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## Pink-Poodle88 (Feb 3, 2008)

Females of _some_ species can live 30-40 years total from what I've read, and I've read as many books on spiders as I could get access to in the course of my life so far. My love and enthusiasm for them never dies. I've also encountered quite a few individuals with female B. smithi's that they said were many years older than I am, so it does seem to be true. But as others have mentioned, it often depends on temperature, diet, etc.

In general, grammostola, brachypelma, and aphonopelma will live the longest, not to mention that they tend to make the best pet spiders as well due to their usually calm nature and the fact that they're so easy to care for. I got my first grammostola rosea at around age 7, and she's still alive almost 13 years later.

If you want a really long living invertebrate though, get a pet lobster. They're capable of living 100 years under the right conditions, though 50 years or so would be a more common life span. I don't have one though, I'd think you would need a relatively complicated and expensive tank setup to keep a lobster happy, but I want to get some eventually if possible. Land hermit crabs are also capable of living decades.


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