Housing a new Heteroscodra maculata?

Snake_Eyes

Arachnoknight
Old Timer
Joined
Jul 22, 2004
Messages
280
A couple days ago I bought a 2" H. maculata and it came in a mini KK that's setup somewhat terrestrial. I've been doing some reading and many of people have noticed that this specie tends to burrow quite a bit when young which is what mine is somewhat doing.

My question is should I change the cage so it's setup more arboreal or should I just leave it alone until it gets bigger? If so any arboreal caging idea's?
 

P. Novak

ArachnoGod
Old Timer
Joined
Sep 12, 2005
Messages
6,218
I have a 3" H.maculata and I set it up in an arboreal cage, and well she decided to burrow. I'd suggest just leaving it till it needs to be rehoused.
 

prey

Arachnosquire
Old Timer
Joined
Nov 15, 2006
Messages
86
Sounds fine!
My H. mac was so crazy it made me drop its rather large vial it came in right into a burrower/arboreal setup without any other method of transferring it.
Unfortunately, I think my H. mac is my first loss (out of 30 Ts).
My fault, I guess. I plucked an escape hole out of its vial. It nocturnally roamed. Every now and then, I'd see it before it went "pew" (should be called H. mach-2) back into it's vial. It had all kinds of space to do whatever (tall branches, deep substrate) but it liked its vial inside the enclosure as it's "burrow".
Well, I accidently let a superworm mature into a black beetle in its vivarium. The spider was very healthy and motled twice in short order. One day, long after the spider had molted (and couldn't possibly be due for another), the starving beetle (forgot to feed it) apparently cornered the H. mac. in its vial and killed and ate it! I tend to post things that draw controversey and I'm about to be pelted with "that's impossible" B.S., but it happened. I knew a guy who starved a Florida palmetto bug cockroach in a jar for a while and sadistically threw in a paper-nest wasp. The roach attacked, killed, and ate the wasp.
It's kinda like how some dumbass decided "love-bugs" should be introduced to Florida because they "eat mosquitoes". Not unless starved. And it's nothing but an environmental disaster here, now.
I accidentally set up a horror story and now have 29 T's instead of 30.
Oops!:eek: :(
 

verry_sweet

Arachnobaron
Old Timer
Joined
Jul 22, 2006
Messages
569
Here is my H. maculata set up. I bought the jar from walmart for like 3 bucks. Melted a butt load of holes in to the sides, top and bottom. The wood I found hiking last year and he seems to really like it. Here's a pic if you look close enough you can see him tucked in to the wood. At night he out exploring then returns to that spot to sleep the day away.



Here is a close up for those who werent able to find him.


Steph
 

Cerbera

Arachnobaron
Old Timer
Joined
Mar 12, 2005
Messages
540
The T seems to be pretty active, often on the side of the encloser. I feel kinda bad she has a 2" legspan and 3" of wall space to climb around on. :(
Hmm. I'd set up a nice large semi-arboreal jobby (as recommended above with both digging and climbing options available), and a good variety of surfaces, and and move her in as soon as you've stabilised the humidity etc...

But then I'm always moving spiders I think are cramped into new containers, and giving them the choice about when they leave, and sometimes its 6 WHOLE MONTHS later, so I can safely assume some spiders are just happy with legs touching edges. Also does my head with alarming regularity the ridiculous smallness of spaces they often choose to moult in, even where there is more room elsewhere easily available to them...

Jay wants an H mac even more now :)
 

tmanjim

Arachnodemon
Old Timer
Joined
Nov 24, 2004
Messages
671
At first mine burrowed and I never saw it. I changed the enclosure and put about 2 inches of substrate and a cork bark and she took to the hide instead of burrowing. Now I can actually see her just be taking off the top of the KK.
 
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