How Long Do B. smithi and B. emilia Live?

Aragorn

Arachnobaron
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Dec 21, 2003
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I am curious to know how long do female B. smithi and B. emilia live? Is it true the female can live 30 years from spiderling to adult? How long have these T's been kept and bred in captivity? Do they know the life expectancy of the females yet? Oh, and are they the longest living species in the world? Thanks!
 

Talkenlate04

ArachnoGod
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Feb 13, 2006
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8,656
I think the longest one on record for life span was a Smithi female at something like 34-36 years. Something like that don't quote me. But I would say a healthy average would be like 26+. They are truly one of the longer lived species.
Smithi's were massively collected from the mid late 70's till the early 90's. Emilia’s as well. Then came the CITIES restrictions and we started to have to rely on breeding them. They are one of the harder Ts to breed. But people do have success on an annual basis. In Germany there are a few breeders that can crank them out like no tomorrow. And once you have one success you could have 500+ babies in one sac.
I think I answered most of what you were asking. If you have any others just ask away I am trapped at work!
 
B

babylon5girl

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My B. Smithi is 27 now and as healthy as ever. She's acctually older than me, which is a little weird feeling.:D
 

cacoseraph

ArachnoGod
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Jan 5, 2005
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My B. Smithi is 27 now and as healthy as ever. She's acctually older than me, which is a little weird feeling.:D
this probably happens more often than we suspect with slow growing WC

i have started a demonstration/"experiment" with a group of G. rosea that i cb'ed. i am feeding them on a fairly insanely calorically limitted diet. the spiderlings are almost, if not, a year old and have eaten an average of four very small roach nymphs each. eventually they will be down to 1 feeding per year as they get bigger and if i can get a good thermoregulatory system in place to keep them at like 63*F. i expect females to live ~40 years, with 10-20% of the females making it past 50 years... and my best performer lasting 60+ years :D

bit of a wait to see, though =P
 

harrypei

Arachnoknight
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Joined
Oct 30, 2006
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289
this probably happens more often than we suspect with slow growing WC

i have started a demonstration/"experiment" with a group of G. rosea that i cb'ed. i am feeding them on a fairly insanely calorically limitted diet. the spiderlings are almost, if not, a year old and have eaten an average of four very small roach nymphs each. eventually they will be down to 1 feeding per year as they get bigger and if i can get a good thermoregulatory system in place to keep them at like 63*F. i expect females to live ~40 years, with 10-20% of the females making it past 50 years... and my best performer lasting 60+ years :D

bit of a wait to see, though =P
then you better make sure you are healthy and alive enough to see the ones that lives to be 60 years old ;)
 

Arachnomaniak

Arachnoangel
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Aug 8, 2004
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932
this probably happens more often than we suspect with slow growing WC

i have started a demonstration/"experiment" with a group of G. rosea that i cb'ed. i am feeding them on a fairly insanely calorically limitted diet. the spiderlings are almost, if not, a year old and have eaten an average of four very small roach nymphs each. eventually they will be down to 1 feeding per year as they get bigger and if i can get a good thermoregulatory system in place to keep them at like 63*F. i expect females to live ~40 years, with 10-20% of the females making it past 50 years... and my best performer lasting 60+ years :D

bit of a wait to see, though =P
That's definitely an interesting expirement! It will be nice to see the results a few years down the road if I'm still alive at the conclusion of the expirement :)

I while back I had the chance to talk with Stan Schultz (one of the authors of The Tarantula Keepers Guide) and he was telling me about some of the super old B. smithi that he and his wife had from the time when tarantulas had just started being brought in as pets. They had a bunch of WC adult specimens from many years ago that they had for years! We talked about unofficial accounts of some of these Mexican species getting to be ove 40 years! It was definitely interesting to speak with someone who had worked with and kept animals for that long!
 

beetleman

Arachnoking
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Jan 5, 2005
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2,874
:clap: yeah, that would an interesting experiment, but on the smithies my girl just turned 20yrs old yay......happy birthday! anyway yeah extremely longlived:clap:
 

M.F.Bagaturov

Arachnoprince
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Jun 20, 2004
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1,003
Hi ALL!
No matter of what You all have thinking or suggesting about theraphosidae longevity some data on the subject have already published. I collect it and post here some not long time ago and it's not just an empty data but some real regularity in theraphosidae natural hystory...
but it is a subject of some artcile one day, I hope...
 
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