Affectionate Ts?

[Rookie]

Okay, another one of my really stupid questions. I know that when you're getting into this hobby, there are no stupid questions, but I think this one might be an exception.
Here goes: do you think Ts have any sort of appreciation for us keepers? Now, I don't mean that it scurries around in excitement when we come into the room. I know that (though they're smart) they probably don't have the brain capacity to conjure much emotion. However, do you think that a T, the longer you have it, grows more accustomed to you? I just ask because Peso is more...patient with me. I used to open his enclosure and he would immediately try to scurry out. Yesterday, however, I opened the lid quickly to get a picture, and he just patiently sat there. He let me snap three pictures (with a flash, even) and he/she never budged an inch. Why is it that Peso isn't so bent on escaping anymore?
Always in your debt, as my questions never end,
The Rookie

 

[Code Monkey]

They definitely learn to filter stimuli based on experience, and you and everything associated with you is stimuli. There's the classic orb weaver and tuning fork experiment that demonstrated conclusively the learning and filtering capacity of spiders.

For instance, my one curly hair rather than run or hunker down like many of the Ts and slings do when it feels the sharp click vibration of me opening the top of the kritter keeper gets all up and ready. It's learned that food is coming. If they have any capacity to categorise entity stimulus, I'm afraid the best we can hope for is we get put in the "large organism, non-food, non-threatening" category. They might even learn to associate the presence of the large non-food, non-threatening organism with the appearance of prey and fresh water which would give the appearance of appreciation but I'd bet my ass they lack the ability to actually link you as the provider in the way a more intelligent animal will, it's just not something their brains would have ever been pressured to develop a capacity to "think" about.

 

[happymeal]

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For instance, my one curly hair rather than run or hunker down like many of the Ts and slings do when it feels the sharp click vibration of me opening the top of the kritter keeper gets all up and ready. It's learned that food is coming

</b>

I totally agree with you C.M. I have severl Ts that knows its fedding time, one of them is my Curly hair also. She will come out of her borrow about to the middle of the K.K. and wait for the dropping of the food. She will get it take it into her hide out. And then bring the remains (if any. She's a PIGGIE) back out to one certain corner everytime.

H.M.

 

[JacenBeers]

I dont think spiders get affectionate or attached to a person or anything. I fully agree with the siggestion by Code monekey about growing used to certain stimuli. Having a small ganglion in stead of a brain is probbaly the reason for this limited functioning. And because instinct is what drives a lot of the functions of these amazing critters.

 

[bness2]

I don't know about affectionate, more tolerant maybe is a better description. My rosie gets handled a lot by me and my students, under close supervision. Almost always, when I nudge her to go onto someone else's hand, she will come back to my hand at the first chance. I don't know if she finds my "smell" more familiar or what, but she does seem to know me, as opposed to someone else.

My cat, on the other hand, likes to sleep in bed under the cover, snuggled close. I don't think I will be trying this anytime soon with my rosie, as friendly as she is. =D =D First off, my wife would have a cow, which would definitely not be something to have in bed. ;P ;P Second, my rosie is a little more delicate than my cat.

Isn't it interesting how we like to make our "pets" as human as possible?

Bryan

 

[galeogirl]

I wasn't sure about how much spiders were capable of processing until I conditioned a few of them to take food from tongs. At first they all reacted by either running away or threatening, but with repeated exposure to the food held in hemostats, they all eventually began taking the food, tentatively at first, but then eventually becoming quite calm about it. Very primitive learning capacity, but it's there.

 

[Immortal_sin]

I'm assuming it's not affection either, but I have an A chalcodes that every time I open the lid, comes out onto my hand. When put back into her container, she wants out again, and not just 'out', but to be held. Maybe she finds skin texture pleasant or something, I'm not sure.

 

[Al Muoio]

Spoiled Avic

It seems that the only time my Avic eats is when I hand feed it. I think he knows that he will be feed when on the substrate. Maybe he's just plain lazy and don't want to hunt anymore. Anyway, I'm glad that I can enjoy feeding him and watching him accept the food.

 

[bness2]

Re: Spoiled Avic

Originally posted by Al Muoio
It seems that the only time my Avic eats is when I hand feed it. I think he knows that he will be feed when on the substrate. Maybe he's just plain lazy and don't want to hunt anymore. Anyway, I'm glad that I can enjoy feeding him and watching him accept the food.

Nijinsky, my Avic, has only accapted a cricket from the forceps once so far. Every time since he dashes around his enclosure (or out of it) while I try to present it to him. It's actually a bit humorous, but he is so small I worry about him escaping during the process and hiding in some crack in my office. The last cricket he ate was one I placed in his web. That seemed to work okay, but I have yet to see signs of him hunting.

Bryan

 

[Gail]

I agree that they definately learn to associate certain actions with food. For mine it seems that when my shadow falls over the cages and they feel the vibrations of me taking the lid off of the first cage all those that are hungry come to the front facing of their enclosures and seem almost eager to be fed. The slings learn after about a week or so that the lifting of the vial and the snapping off of the lid means food is coming and once they figure that out they no longer panic and try to run when I take the lids off. Some of them, in fact, sit in the middle of the vial leaning up and will actually catch the food as it is dropped - an amazing feat for an animal that is practically blind. I think they must sense the minute changes in air pressure as the crix body falls towards them.
All of that said though I also know that they don't have the capacity to retain any of this "learned" behavior for long. When I had an overly full schedule a few weeks back and skipped feeding them for 3 days it was a whole new game for them. However, it did only take them about 2 or 3 days to go back to their "learned" behavior as opposed to the week to 10 days it took them to learn it in the first place, so perhaps that is some sort of memory retention? So many questions and so few true answers

Gail