User Hobo's photos

[paassatt]

What a weird abdominal pattern on your P. metallica...forgive me for not going through the other 37 pages of this thread to see for myself, but has that spider always had that particular pattern on its abdomen, or did it come about after a specific molt?

 

[Hobo]

What a weird abdominal pattern on your P. metallica...forgive me for not going through the other 37 pages of this thread to see for myself, but has that spider always had that particular pattern on its abdomen, or did it come about after a specific molt?

I got her last year, and according to the seller, she has always had it.
Not only that, but she abdomen is also strangely shaped, and she doesn't have control of one of her pedipalps. That means it's always sticking to random things as she walks around, and is usually dragging against the surface underneath her.
Here's a vid of it getting stuck onto a plastic plant while she was eating:
[youtube]uTRh7ngrOVo[/youtube]

 

[Storm76]

Gotta love Acanthoscurria spp. and their feisty behavior...only T that came close to bite me really so far ever

 

[Hobo]

^Think you mean Nhandu

Anyway, not so good update today, About a week ago the L. difficilis molted successfully despite only eating 12 (or less) things since her last molt. Her molt apparently went off without a hitch (though I did have to remove her carapace at the pedicel again)


But this past Thursday, I see her in a death curl, and not the typical stretch curls a freshly molted T assumes.
So, I prodded her, and it seemed she could no longer move the right half of her body, and was struggling to move her other legs.
Despite it being a week since she molted, she was still soft, and her fangs still red and fairly pliable to the touch. So, I placed her over the water dish and she appeared to spread her chelicerae to drink.
Unfortunately it was too late, and she has passed on She has gone completely limp.




I used the opportunity to take a few shots. Her fang and oral area, still soft:




Her strange pedicel, still present after a couple of molts:


If I had to guess, she simply did not have enough energy to produce whatever it is that is needed to harden up and recover in general, and she may have lost too to be able to recover.
Sucks, but such is life, and "there's no crying in Tarantula keeping"!

[HR][/HR]

More happier updates, especially for the breeding projects. I finally tracked down a MM P. metallica. He was injured in shipping. with his back legs nearly ripped off in the opposite direction.


His legs eventually returned to a more normal position, and though he has limited range of motion, he is still able to build a sperm web and load up:
[YOUTUBE]KC_5o65LJ84[/YOUTUBE]
Both my females are freshly molted, and after a few meals I will be starting to pair them in September!

I also picked up an adult female and male Oligoxystre diamentinensis .




They're cool little guys that I've already started to pair up.
The male is very flighty and high strung, so I just put them both in a RUB, lifted their lids and let him find his own way.


Eventually he found his way into her enclosure.


He lured her towards him, and all the way to the top of the bin before he went in for insertions.






Here's a vid of what transpired. Watch as the male gets really impatient with her at the 0:46 mark!
[YOUTUBE]u5x4fmBsQgI[/YOUTUBE]

[HR][/HR]

Although I had one bad molt, I did have a couple of significant good ones.
All three of my female metallicas have molted, but I only got shots of the "special" one.
She had created a molting mat at the top of the enclosure, but ended up molting so that she fell straight to the ground mid molt.




The B. smithi female molted finally.




and had a nice drink shortly afterwards.


And the female GBB I've been documenting has molted as well. No more tan of the legs!




The P. irminia did not molt, but here she is anyway.


And a shot of the P. metallica before she molted.

 

[freedumbdclxvi]

Sorry about the difficilis.

 

[jbm150]

Wow those O. diamantinensis are really beautiful! That sucks about your difficilis

 

[Storm76]

Sucks losing a T like that . Nice pairing vid, the female was pretty receptive though obviously thinking about having him for dinner? And yes, I meant Nhandu - reading one thing, typing another..happened to me more than once.

 

[Hobo]

Sorry about the difficilis.

Wow those O. diamantinensis are really beautiful! That sucks about your difficilis

Sucks losing a T like that . Nice pairing vid, the female was pretty receptive though obviously thinking about having him for dinner? And yes, I meant Nhandu - reading one thing, typing another..happened to me more than once.

Thanks guys. At least she left me a very nice shed

[HR][/HR]

Speaking of molts, My GBB female has molted just after four months, no doubt in attempt to regrow her lost limb.
Unfortunately, her palp was again stuck. Also, unfortunately, I wasn't there to help her so not only was her palp still stuck in the molt when I found her, but her newly regrown leg was crooked from being right next to the stuck limb.


She managed to separate her molt-stuck palp from the rest of the molt though.




Now, I can't keep having to do this every time she molts, so I decided to just remove her palp (which was pretty much nearly separated anyway).
She was very weak for the first few hours so I pretty much just plunked her right next to the water dish, where she spent the next day with her head down taking a drink.
This morning I found her up on her web, so hopefully she will recover.


After she has a few meals, I will be removing her newly regenerated leg as well; I just know it will be a problem for her next molt if I leave it there.
[HR][/HR]

On a happier note, O. diamentinensis has laid her sac sometime last week while I was on vacation! Apparently, they lay hammock style sacs.
It's hard to get a photo, so here's a short vid:
[YOUTUBE]Jr3lcsgshAk[/YOUTUBE]

And, the P. metallica pairing has finally begun.
Please excuse the "eggs" on the cage walls.
[YOUTUBE]HzQM3jq9gX0[/YOUTUBE]
As you can see his back legs are pretty much fine. This was also the first time I'd seen the female since her last molt, and I'm glad her back leg has begun to regenerate nicely.
They certainly make a good pair. Maybe it's because they both have leg issues.

I left him in there overnight, and witnessed a very clear insertion in the wee hours of the morning.
Female #2 will be paired this weekend.

 

[advan]

There are a lot of ups and downs in tarantula keeping! Sorry for the bad molts. but big congrats on the Od sac!

 

[Storm76]

Awesome on the diamantinensis sac! Good luck with it! Your GBB seriously is a problem T - can only hope that she'll be out of the "bad years" at some point.

 

[Hobo]

Whelp, female number two got inserted last week:


And interestingly enough, my dopey "special" small female with the wonky palp and abdomen got all "excited" with his incessant tapping, and wouldn't stop responding to his taps with some of her own.

I had to put him in a different room to shut them all up.

I'm still pairing the M. robustum, though he is no longer physically getting any insertions, nor has he made any sperm webs. I think he's done reproduction wise, but I figured I'd still let him do his thing until he dies, or becomes food. What a lucky guy!


Here's my little ~.75" N. tripepii, quickly getting larger.


I was lucky enough to get her previous molt intact, and managed to sex it with the 'scope:


Here's some more molt shots while I'm at it:

M. balfouri


GBB female sling


GBB male sling


[HR][/HR]

With all that graphic tarantula porn out of the way, it was time for feeding in the H. gabonensis communal.


It's been half a year now, and the majority of the mature males have either been eaten, or have died. There are a couple that have hooked out though, and one really old looking zombie looking one.
One thing though, there are helluva lot more little slings in there.


I suspect they've been eating each other, or maybe those tiny mystery bugs.




Here are a couple that were living right outside an adult female's web.


I gotta keep an eye out when I have it open; a lot of these guys have webs built on the vents or where the lid meets the tank.


Maybe since all their sacs have dispersed (or were eaten?) Most of the females have reopened and remade their tube webs and hammocks, which made for excellent feeding responses and pic opportunities.

Here's one of the smaller females, just about to grab a couple of crickets. See the isopod?




This one has always had that bald spot.


That small female from the earlier pic raiding another spiders web.


...and a mature male grabbing the crickets that manage to get underneath it.


[HR][/HR]

And finally, a freshly molted Avicularia


And My G. rosea RCF, finally in premolt after nearly four years from her previous molt. I hope she can hold it until October to clinch it!

 

[Hobo]

So, at about three weeks since I discovered the diamantinesis sac, I was impatient enough to pull it to see what's going on inside.
I had to remove the female as she was being pretty defensive.

It was a good sized sac, wrapped like a gyoza.

It was full of 1st instars!

There are 94 of them, and I didn't see any bad ones .

There was one EWL though. It has since molted into first instar.

 

[Storm76]

AWESOME on the H. gabonensis communal and the diamantinensis sac! Great job!

 

[Hobo]

Distracted with the sac, forgot to post that my G. rosea finally molted last month, after nearly four years ago.






B. Emilia molted too.


Female GBB is getting along fine now... just gotta pull that leg...


Rare shot of my C. fasciatum, who herself waited more than two years to molt


The little O. diamantinesis slings are doing well. I dropped some water drops into the incubator and got a shot of them drinking.

 

[Hobo]

The O. diamantinensis project is officially a success. Unless I was very lucky, they seem to be a very easy species to breed.
Here is a shot of mum


And all her babies. All 94 have survived.






One of the late bloomers




Some shots of the little ones as I was splitting them up:

 

[Protectyaaaneck]

Congrats on the O. diamantinensis eggsac, Jason! I had no idea that you were breeding these until just a few moments ago. I'm happy to see that people are having success with them in N. America. About how big is your pair of adults? I have three that are in the 2" range and I'm wondering when I can expect them to mature. Also, I'm really jealous of the H. gabonensis communal. I can't wait until I can experiment with them myself. Unfortunately it's going to have to wait since my last sac only yielded one second instar. lol I have another eggsac from another female, but since it's her third eggsac within this molt cycle and the two before this one weren't any good, I don't have much hope. Again, great work with the diamantinensis, definitely put a smile on my face this morning.

 

[Hobo]

Congrats on the O. diamantinensis eggsac, Jason! I had no idea that you were breeding these until just a few moments ago. I'm happy to see that people are having success with them in N. America. About how big is your pair of adults? I have three that are in the 2" range and I'm wondering when I can expect them to mature. Also, I'm really jealous of the H. gabonensis communal. I can't wait until I can experiment with them myself. Unfortunately it's going to have to wait since my last sac only yielded one second instar. lol I have another eggsac from another female, but since it's her third eggsac within this molt cycle and the two before this one weren't any good, I don't have much hope. Again, great work with the diamantinensis, definitely put a smile on my face this morning.

Thanks!
Yeah, everything with them went smoothly. She was only paired once, and it was evidentially enough. The female is about 3", the male was about the same size, maybe just a hair bigger. The guy I got my pair from hatched three sacs of these guys, I think. So, they'll be plenty more around, at least in Canada. Good luck with yours!


I keep one of my gabonensis by herself, and had her paired up. She too, produced three bad sacs, but she ate them all. Hope you have better luck next time.

 

[Oreo]

Congrats on the slings! That species looks like a stunted, miniature bastard cousin of the GBB, only because I can't afford em. Also, I think I am more attached to your GBB female than I probably should be...how old is she?

 

[Raivynn]

This thread has made me want to get two things that I didn't think I would want. An avic and a rosea.

Gorgeous, gorgeous bitey things, and I love the way you show them off!! I may have questions about enclosure building when mine get a bit bigger.

 

[Hobo]

Congrats on the slings! That species looks like a stunted, miniature bastard cousin of the GBB, only because I can't afford em. Also, I think I am more attached to your GBB female than I probably should be...how old is she?

Thanks.
I have no idea how old she is. I bought her already adult sized in 2010, from another member who I believe also bought her as an adult.

This thread has made me want to get two things that I didn't think I would want. An avic and a rosea.

Gorgeous, gorgeous bitey things, and I love the way you show them off!! I may have questions about enclosure building when mine get a bit bigger.

Thanks, glad you like it.
There are a myriad of threads around on DIY projects, you just have to search for them. I've only made the one tank
[HR][/HR]

The new slings have started to eat!
And as per Hobo tradition, they get fed cricket parts (or a whole one if it's small enough).






Mother, in the meantime, has decided to molt


The biggest GBB female from the sac has also molted, now with a hint of blue on the carapace. Here she is sucking on her molt.


I also managed to impulse snag a 4" B. boehmei from a pet store for about $90, after a quick examination of her vent. That's a bargain price here in Canada. Take that, pet store!



The original intention was to flip this one, but I think I knew deep down she was staying with me