Haploclastus devamatha turret building

[klawfran3]

Earlier today I rehoused my H. devamatha into a new habitat in the hopes that it would start to build a turret, which the species is supposedly famous for. For those who don't know what a turret is in this context, it's not a mounted machine gun or cannon, but instead a dirt structure similar in construction to the medieval castle "turrets," which are often-circular vertical towers that come up from a wall, used to get better angles for shooting arrows from.

Some older threads had photos of them turret building, but also there were many reports of people saying theirs never did such behavior. In one such thread I saw that someone gave them no anchoring points and started a burrow in the center of the enclosure, and that seemed to encourage the behavior. I copied this when rehousing mine, and dug the starter burrow right in the middle with no anchoring points (save for some leaflitter to add some hiding places).

I am happy to report that within three hours the spider had built a turret an inch long already, and after checking on it now a few more hours later the structure has gotten even longer. The spider has incorporated the leaflitter into it which I find interesting (and very endearing). The turret walls are very thin and use a ton of silk in their construction, which leads me to believe it's entirely an intentional design. I've even witnessed it positioning freshly dug dirt and webbing it into the top of the turret, although it's so skittish that it wouldn't let me get a photo while out of the burrow!

Please enjoy photos of the labor of this small rainbow spider!

 

[Arachnophobphile]

Earlier today I rehoused my H. devamatha into a new habitat in the hopes that it would start to build a turret, which the species is supposedly famous for. For those who don't know what a turret is in this context, it's not a mounted machine gun or cannon, but instead a dirt structure similar in construction to the medieval castle "turrets," which are often-circular vertical towers that come up from a wall, used to get better angles for shooting arrows from.

Some older threads had photos of them turret building, but also there were many reports of people saying theirs never did such behavior. In one such thread I saw that someone gave them no anchoring points and started a burrow in the center of the enclosure, and that seemed to encourage the behavior. I copied this when rehousing mine, and dug the starter burrow right in the middle with no anchoring points (save for some leaflitter to add some hiding places).

I am happy to report that within three hours the spider had built a turret an inch long already, and after checking on it now a few more hours later the structure has gotten even longer. The spider has incorporated the leaflitter into it which I find interesting (and very endearing). The turret walls are very thin and use a ton of silk in their construction, which leads me to believe it's entirely an intentional design. I've even witnessed it positioning freshly dug dirt and webbing it into the top of the turret, although it's so skittish that it wouldn't let me get a photo while out of the burrow!

Please enjoy photos of the labor of this small rainbow spider!

View attachment 459438 View attachment 459439 View attachment 459436 View attachment 459437

Nice, thanks for sharing that info and photos.

I always found this T to have some stunning colors. I never knew that they built turrets.

What size is your devamatha?

 

[klawfran3]

Nice, thanks for sharing that info and photos.

I always found this T to have some stunning colors. I never knew that they built turrets.

What size is your devamatha?

About 1.5" DLS, it was way bigger than I thought during the rehouse!

 

[Arachnophobphile]

They get about 5 to 6 inches max I believe but definitely a unique and stunning T.

 

[l4nsky]

This behaviour is actually quite wide spread, just few species get setup properly to exhibit it. Haploclastus devamatha is known for building a turret, but most fossorial, "tube dwelling" Ornithoctoninae species will exhibit this behaviour if provided with the correct building blocks. To show a few examples currently in my collection:

This one was built by one of my juvenile H. devamatha.


This one was built by one of my juvenile Ornithoctoninae sp Ho Chi Minh.


This one was built by one of my juvenile Ornithoctoninae sp Vietnam Silver.


This one was was built by a juvenile Ornithoctonus aureotibialis.


This one was built by a MF Ornithoctonus aureotibialis.


This one was built by a subadult female Haplopelma sp Bach Ma.


And this one was built by a male Ornithoctonus sp Ranong Blue.

 

[CrazyOrnithoctonineGuy]

This behaviour is actually quite wide spread, just few species get setup properly to exhibit it. Haploclastus devamatha is known for building a turret, but most fossorial, "tube dwelling" Ornithoctoninae species will exhibit this behaviour if provided with the correct building blocks. To show a few examples currently in my collection:
View attachment 459487
This one was built by one of my juvenile H. devamatha.

View attachment 459488
This one was built by one of my juvenile Ornithoctoninae sp Ho Chi Minh.

View attachment 459489
This one was built by one of my juvenile Ornithoctoninae sp Vietnam Silver.

View attachment 459490
This one was was built by a juvenile Ornithoctonus aureotibialis.

View attachment 459491
This one was built by a MF Ornithoctonus aureotibialis.

View attachment 459492
This one was built by a subadult female Haplopelma sp Bach Ma.

View attachment 459493
And this one was built by a male Ornithoctonus sp Ranong Blue.

I'd add that my Cyriopagopus schmidti has also set up a turret.

 

[fcat]

Turret in situ, Kartchner Caverns, Arizona - unknown sp




H devamatha - I put a long narrow piece of cork in to act as scaffolding, didn't pack the reptisoil, and provided the moss "ring" with the long piece of sphag, then little tiny pieces of sphag to build with. Everything above the ring is the turret. He was 0.75" going in, I don't know how big he is now, but I only got him in July. Molted twice I think.




Orinthoctonus aureotibialis - Her turret sits on the substrate, which you can see is just above the lower ventilation holes. When I built this enclosure I placed two cork bark pieces in the corner, one at a 45 degree angle (hidden behind all that moss in the foreground, and the other closer to 75 degrees. She instantly burrowed used the 45, and then built the turret in the gap between the two pieces of cork bark. She collected EVERY speck of the ground. The pieces of sphag you see are new ones I added to see if she was paying attention. You can see she carefully selected.a piece for the top of her turret. The original moss is jungle moss.



Finally, my favorite, the ephebopus cyanognathus, spectacular in every regard. Her enclosure is the middle one. The top picture was what I made for her, the bottom picture was was she did with it. She's sandwiched between two psalmopoeus victori kids. I honestly thought she'd use either the short edge or the long edge as the base of her turret. She avoided it completely until her tube wrapped around to that corner. She moved a lot of dirt around but left me the tiniest viewing window. She kept her tunnel narrow. She definitely likes to be cozy.


I am obsessed with turret builders. How did I miss this post?? Thank you all so far but keep them coming!!