CommanderBacon
Arachnobaron
- Joined
- May 21, 2018
- Messages
- 497
From photos I've seen of the adult coloration, I'm pretty excited. I haven't found any information about their growth, husbandry, or anything else, though so I'll try to remind myself to update here
Updating this thread with the latest info:
This species hasn't been the most exciting or interesting species I've kept, but there was an interesting new development last week.
I had rehoused it from the 2.5"x2.5"x6" Herpcult enclosure into a larger 4"w x 4"l x7"h Amac box a few months ago after it molted to over 1.5", and it used and expanded the pre-made burrow a little bit. I molt sexed it as likely male at that time, but not 100% certain.
It has been MUCH more visible since its last molt, when we had a size gain to ~2.5". It has always been a good eater and has been growing reasonably fast, but up until the latest molt, it has stayed in its shallow burrow most of the time and it has not dug much except to expand the burrow to fit its body. After the last molt, it has been much more visible and has stayed out on top of its burrow. It has been showing nice adult coloration for the past two molts, as well.
Last week, he dug downward for the first time. I'm not sure why. He's not always down there, but it's about an inch and a half under the water bowl. I considered that it might be due to the water leeching into the substrate underneath, but I don't think so, because it's too far down, and I always inject water into the bottom of the substrate from the other side.
Really curious to see what he does next!
Pics of burrow and enclosure. I’d consider rehousing into something larger but it seems fine-?
Updates on this species: it sealed itself in completely for a solid month after expanding its burrow and molted. Then it took a while for it to come back out again. Normal spider stuff, just took an unusually long time this time.
Since it opened up its burrow, it has rarely been out during the day and and I'm seeing a lot of the feet while it just waits for food to come by. I think it's cute. It is mildly skittish and maybe about 2.5" dls right now. If it's male, it hasn't matured, but the colors are amazing on the rare occasions when I've seen it out. Extremely striking!
I plan to rehouse it and several other fossorial dwarfs I have, so I'll hopefully be purchasing loads of new enclosures at the Reptile Super Show in a few weeks.
So far this has been an extremely easy tarantula to keep, if not the most exciting, and would be fine for a beginner that likes fossorials (I don't actually know any beginners who would be all gung-ho about fossorials but hey who knows?). Now that the colors have brightened up, I'm glad I got it
I'll see if the behavior changes once I move it into a bigger enclosure.
I realized that I hadn't updated this thread since December. Since Tom Patterson is selling slings, I figured it would be wise to update.
In early January I purchased a 6"x6"x10"h top opening enclosure with the intention of rehousing this spider into it as its final enclosure. During the course of rehousing, I observed the ventral area and it looks 100% male to me (open to opinions on this). I had not seen any evidence in previous molts that this spider was female. It did bury its last molt, however.
The spider was at 2.5" dls and I've read that this species reaches 2-2.5" dls as an adult, so I expected that it was a large penultimate male. He's leggy, has kind of a stumpy body, and is absolutely gorgeous
In its new enclosure, it did not burrow extensively like it had a few months previously, and instead dug itself a shallow burrow just under the surface against the glass. I have a great view of it.
Roughly two weeks ago, it buried itself. Since it has been raining a lot lately, I was anticipating a molt. Last night, I noticed that it freshly molted - HOWEVER, it does not have emboli. The spider is easily 3" dls, so if this is female, it has a really strange looking ventral area, and if it's male, he's either a monster or the size of this species isn't sufficiently recorded in the hobby.
It looks like he chewed up the molt, but I may try to pull it some time later today.
I've been keeping this species at room temp, feeding one small prey item once a week or once every two weeks depending on the size of the abdomen, and allowing it 6" of substrate to burrow if it wants. It has remained underground 97% of the time. I'm not keeping the enclosure particularly moist, but I am injecting water into the bottom of the substrate like I do with all of my fossorial tarantulas. This has been an easy species to keep.
Side note: He is stupidly pretty.
. And just in case there’s FAQ’s...”No”, “Yes”, and “Wait” are all copyright responses with credit to 