Are G. pulchripes deep diggers?

[Tremors]

And in case anyone misunderstood me I did say deep diggers.

I have a little 1/4" G pulchripes and this little guy is burrowing as far as he can go. I received him as a freebie and I got to tell you he is shooting to the top of my favorite list.

I took him out out of his 40 dram vial and put him in an old six inch tall turtle food container and he burrowed straight down to the bottom.

I have no experience with this species so please let me know.

 

[xgrafcorex]

I've never owned one myself, but I would say it's either one of two things.

1. They love to dig. (Haven't had any Grammostola that were big on burrowing though.)

2. It's digging to find more ideal temp/humidity conditions. Grammostola are pretty resiliant in general but that could be a possibility.

 

[smuey]

Funny you should say that. I recently acquired two small slings of G. pulchripes myself, and I was actualy very surprised to find them the day after, when they created a rather elaborate burrow. They even built themselves two big "chambers" where they pretty much do everything. I hardly ever see them out of their burrows, so I'm guessing maybe all of them like to burrow, at least when they're young?

 

[tarantulagirl10]

They are not obligate burrowers like say the Haplopelmas but slings of many species will burrow I have noticed. Grammostola pulchripes generally as adults are pretty out in the open spiders. Mine will use her hide very seldom. I have heard some people call theirs "bulldozers" because they are always moving dirt around and such. Mine doesn't do this at all but is very interesting to watch. She is always up to something. They get pretty large, are docile, and not too shy. Definitely one of my favorites. enjoy

 

[desertanimal]

My two 1/2-3/4" slings are both at the bottom of their 3" containers. They've made capacious burrows at the bottom. They are living on the clean plastic floor. They haven't been out for a while, and one is sealed in. I'm hoping they molt soon and come back to the surface!

 

[Kathy]

I wonder why mine stays hidden all the time. Never ever comes out. I've barely seen her since last summer, and that's when I peak in her hide to look at her. She has great living conditions so I don't think that's a problem. She has a little opening that crickets crawl in to. Maybe she is just fat and lazy?

 

[andrew_w_hill]

I have a 3-4" G. pulchripes and it has a fairly large burrow, with a big wall of silk at the entrance. It stays down there most of the time.

 

[Blurboy]

I have a 4" male and he's dug a nice little burrow under an Exo home. He's out on display loads though, especially at night and he's a stunning spider to look at too. The temp in the encosure is spot on and I've found that when it's on the lower side they do hide away a bit which is why I fitted a heatmat instead of relying on room temperature alone.

 

[killy]

Short answer to your question - YES.

MY pulchripes was just a teensy little thing like yours when he abrubtly went underground - and stayed there, without a trace ... he was down there so long, in fact, that I presumed he was dead, and came to the boards for advice on when to start digging. Luckily the consensus was unanimous: leave him alone! Then one day I found a hole in the substrate about the width of a pencil eraser, and that eased my mind ... about a week later I held a squirming mini-meal worm with tweezers right at the mouth of the eraser-hole and it was pop-goes-the-weasel, or in this case, the pulchripes. It wasn't long before he was coming above-ground to grab his vittles and do his little dance before submerging again. Now he's a juvenile, and although he still burrows, for the most part he likes to hang out on top of his flower-pot hide, Snoopy-style.