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Tarantula Stromatopelma calceatum

Common Names
Featherleg baboon
Previous Review/Report Link
https://arachnoboards.com/threads/stromatopelma-calceatum.25099/

Bite Reports details

Latest reviews

Bitten by 2" S Calceatum
Bite/Sting Date
1/30/2024
Pain Level
Major pain.
Circumstance
I was packing shipments of tarantulas, when instead of going into the shipping vial, the tarantula ran up my arm. To keep it from running up into my shirt, I blocked the tarantula with my other hand, and it bit me where I blocked it. Midway between my wrist and elbow on my right forearm.
Size
2"
Damage
Barely noticeable puncture wounds
Symptoms
At first, it didn't feel any more severe than a typical bee sting. After 10 minutes or so, I felt as if someone was stabbing me with a very hot wire, from the puncture site. Within 30 minutes from being bitten there was localized redness, and my entire arm felt incredibly hot; as if someone was running my hand and arm under water that is just hot enough to be uncomfortable. These symptoms lasted for a few hours, before subsiding into general discomfort and joint stiffness.
Medical Attention
I didn't seek medical attention, but did take 800mg of Ibuprofen, Tylenol +, and a healthy dose of THC.
Lingering effects
The morning after, I feel generally stiff and uncomfortable. I'd describe my arm as sore, similar to how you feel after getting a flu shot. Unannounced, I will sometimes feel sharp shooting pains in my joints that come quickly, but subside just as quickly. As the afternoon progressed my arm felt increasingly hot and painful, 24 hours after the bite. Visiting urgent care, to help alleviate some of the discomfort and hot feeling
I feel like I dodged a bullet here. Being that this specimen was only 2" I don't think my symptoms were maximized. This whole experience was generally uncomfortable, but some major pain associated. A large tarantula obviously could have given me much worse symptoms.
Last edited:
In-Depth Stromatopelma calceatum Bite Review
Bite/Sting Date
July 6, 2021
Pain Level
Major pain., Excruciating pain.
Circumstance
The bite happened during a rehouse, which the specimen freaked out and ran up my long pair of tongs that I was holding in my right hand. It then made a jump forward up my right arm from the long tongs. It then jumped again onto my left hand and bit my index finger. The specimen then ran up my left arm onto my head and jumped a third time into its new enclosure. Which I then closed the enclosure lid.
Size
5''
Damage
Only one of the two fangs managed to pierce my flesh, which caused minor bleeding. The best example of the pain is feeling like a barbless fishing hook got stuck in your finger.
Symptoms
Symptoms:

Day 1:
Within the first 30 minutes, there was barely any pain and it felt like a typical bee sting. But after 30 minutes, the bite instantly caused the nerves on my hand to twitch immensely. Causing my hand to go numb, but the swelling only went up my index and middle finger on my left hand where I was bit. After a trip to the Hospital ER, it was suggest to place an ice packet on the bitten area and take a pill of Ibuprofen to help. After two hours of having ice on my hand, I just stop placing the ice packet on my hand. Which that entire night My hand was swarming with intense pain that felt like an internal 1st degree burn within my hand. I did manage to sleep though.

Day 2 going Into Day 3:
This is where the real pain comes in to your body. During this day, I've experienced severe and intense muscle soreness, spasms, and cramping. While I had it on my back and sides of my body. The real pain came into my legs, and it caused severe damage. The intensity got so bad, I could no longer control my legs as the nerves and muscles of my legs was causing multiple cramps and spams to happen all at once. At one point, all of my toes were cramping, spasming, and pulling in all separate directions. What made it worst was that my gastrocnemius and soleus muscles on my legs were also pulling and cramping as well. The best way to explain the pain is that I literally cannot and could not control my legs at all. It got so bad, that I went to the Hospital ER twice that day. The first visit was just a report on the cramping, but the second visit, they had to put me on IV's and take blood samples to see what's happening.

After coming out of IV's and waking up (day 3), I was in so much cramping and spasm pain that I had to literally get up and try to stop the muscles and tendons from pulling everywhere on my legs. After it stopped, I was prescribed medicine that would help reduce the muscle soreness and help the muscles relax. The only downside was that they could not prescribe or do much to stop the cramps and spasms from happening. The reason was that finding the exact diagnosis of the problem is too vast and finding the exact reason will take too much time and effort. So the best they could do if prescribe medicine to help relax the muscles from the soreness.

What they found in my blood from the sampling was that most of it was normal and I was a very healthy individual. The only bad signs they found in my blood samples was signs of muscle deterioration which came from the severe cramping and muscle spams. I was suggested to sleep and consume more water to help out the muscles, which they also gave me some of the prescribed medicine a bit early to help deal with the muscle soreness from the cramping and spams.

The rest of the third day was spent on my living room couch resting and trying to relax my muscles.

Day 4 (current day that I'm typing this):
My cramping and spasms had calmed down and I can walk again, although not perfectly yet. I'm still skeptical if it's over, but at least I'm more fine now than I was on day 2-3. I'm still going to relax a bit and take the prescriptions given to me. Although I can still feel a bit of the internal soreness in my left hand and fingers, it's not anything to severe in terms of pain. But my legs are still a bit sore on the gastrocnemius and soleus muscles, but at least it's recovering. I'll probably update this report if things take a turn for the worst but this is about it for now.
Medical Attention
Medical attention I received was a total of 3 trips to the Hospital ER, a visit to one of my frequent doctors, and some prescriptions: Ibuprofen, Tylenol, and the muscle relaxant prescription (which I forgot what's it called).
Lingering effects
Minor joint pain within my fingers on the hand that was bit and a bit of muscle soreness from the muscle spasms and cramping on my legs from day 2-3.
I give this a four out of five because while I did get bit, I didn't get a full bite of the venom as only one of the two fangs managed to pierce my flesh. If I had gotten bitten by both fangs, then it would've been 5 out of 5, but that wasn't case for me. I only got luckily that I didn't get a full complete bite with my specimen. Even though I only got pierced by one fang, it doesn't change the fact that the pain was a severe one that had a long lasting affect on my muscles and body, especially on day 2-3. But after day 3, I'm now steadily recovering and trying to get my normal life back together for the better.
17 members found this helpful.
Extremely unpleasant experience.
Bite/Sting Date
26/06/2021
Pain Level
Excruciating pain.
Circumstance
Hi guys, I thought you might be interested to know my experience after being bitten by my adult female feather leg Baboon 7 days ago. I was rehousing her into a new larger enclosure. I used the bottom cut off a 2 litre pop bottle method and placed it over where she was in a cork bark tube which seemed to work at first. As soon as I started to move it she flew down the inside, out the bottom and up the inside of the tank. She then threw herself at me and landed low down on my left index finger where she proceeded to sink her fangs in pumping venom into me for quite some time before letting go and luckily landing in her new enclosure. I quickly put the lid on securely!
Size
6 inches
Damage
2 deep puncture wounds.
Symptoms
I put a very tight band around the top of my finger, sprayed antiseptic on the wounds and rubbed my finger downwards in the hope of pushing out some venom. This was just a guess and knee jerk reaction on my part. I have kept all sorts of OW's over the 12 years I have been in the hobby along with Centipedes etc and never got complacent when performing normal tasks.

The bite was extremely painful at the wound site (this coming from someone who has broken numerous bones over the years and is covered in tattoos) quickly developing into throbbing and aching in my knuckle then my hand. My hand froze into a claw, swelled up to twice the size and I had shooting pains all up my arm along with pins and needles etc. Off to A&E I went. After several hours and a dose of morphine and anti sickness meds I was allowed home with a prescription of co-codamol. Still felt awful and didn't wake up until 8pm that night, the pain had mainly gone and I could move my hand etc although the knuckle still ached.

However as the night went on the pain increased again along with painful cramping and muscle aches. I went to bed at 1am feeling like I'd been hit by a steam roller along with nausea and hot and cold sweats. I went back to bed.
Medical Attention
A trip to A&E, morphine, ECG, anti sickness meds.
Lingering effects
It is now a week later and my hand is still aching in the knuckles ,swollen. Glands under my armpit have gone down but I still feel extremely worn out with achey muscles. The worst part are the cramps! Oh god the cramps! Random and out of the blue in a range of places on the body. Sleeping for long is rather difficult when you are woken by searing pain in a random muscle on a different part of the body every few hours!
Hope the info is useful. Thankfully no harm came to Fanny the Feather leg Baboon in the process but I think I'll be wearing a chainmail suit next time any routine maintenance is required, a clean up crew will probably be added to her enclosure to help reduce how much is required.

I'm not looking forward to possibly another week or more of this.

DO not underestimate this T!
12 members found this helpful.
S. calceatum bite, one of the scariest and worst experiences of my life.
Bite/Sting Date
10/15/2020
Pain Level
Excruciating pain.
Circumstance
I was trying to pull out her water dish, when she decided to jump off the wall of the enclosure and run up the tongs. She tagged me on the tip of my ring finger before jumping off my forearm and (thankfully) back into her log.
Size
4 inches when legs spread
Damage
Immediate puncture of the skin, visible swelling within 10 minutes; eventually swelling to 3x its normal size within a couple hours.
Symptoms
Immediate sharp pain during initial bite.

10 minutes after the pain had radiated up my arm; it felt like a deep, really bad sunburn, but throughout the entire arm, not just the surface. That's the best way I can explain it. Swelling on my finger was now visible.

Within 30 minutes I started having muscle spasms through my arm and VERY VERY painful cramps in my hand. I cannot begin to tell you how bad they hurt. I have not experienced anything like it in my life (and I've been tagged by Boiga dendrophila which wasn't pleasant, but it doesn't compare to this). My finger is now at least twice its size.

2 hours in and I check my temperature and have a fever of 102°F ; at this point I'm considering having my gf drive me to the hospital. I decide if the fever gets any worse I will go to the hospital. Luckily it didn't. I also have a weird symptom of cold sweats, to the point I needed to change shirts because it was too excessive. Spasms and cramps are still present, but not as severe.

2.5 hours in and I become nauseous, nearly vomit but I manage to hold it off. This was easily the 2nd worse part of the experience, behind the cramps.

After 5 hours I'm still experiencing all the symptoms but they are starting to ease up. It felt much longer than 5 hours. I decide to lay down.

I also forgot to mention that it felt like my heart was pounding for the first ~3 hours.

I managed to fall asleep after smoking some cannabis and woke up 7 hours later with a nasty headache and noticeable soreness in my arm. Finger is still swollen but not as much as the day before.

After 72 hours the swelling and noticeable symptoms are gone.
Medical Attention
I did not receive professional medical attention, though I probably should have.
Lingering effects
Just soreness and a headache the following days.
I am giving this rating because I feel that people should really be careful around this species. Do not underestimate tarantula venom just because they "Aren't lethal to humans." This T has the potential to cause you indescribable pain and although unconfirmed I suspect a vulnerable person could be killed by a particularly bad envenomation. You will not enjoy or be able to brush off the experience, I promise you that. The pain feels like it lasts much longer than it actually does. I would not advise getting this T at all if you have pre-existing heart or nervous system conditions. Its just too fast to risk it. I know people dislike the label "aggressive" for Tarantulas; but this is the only species I've ever witnessed deliberately jump towards you to bite, so take that for what you will.

I attached a pic I took of the initial bite. I lost my other pictures unfortunately after I got a new phone. This was the only one that was uploaded to my cloud account :/

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21 members found this helpful.

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