Is there anything wrong with my E. murinus enclosure?

[Moakmeister]

My juvenile female Ephebopus murinus, Shalltear, has been with me in the same enclosure for almost three years now. It's disgusting looking, so I'm gonna take her out, clean it, and redo the enclosure with some custom substrate I've just made. Something's been bothering me, though. This is supposed to be a fossorial species, permanently inside their burrows and never coming out. But Shalltear... never dug a burrow at all. She's never not been out in the open. I feel like there's nothing wrong with how I set her up: super deep substrate, some cork bark to dig under, the whole shebang. She just never did it. Here are pics from today:


No burrow, not even a little divot. Here's a pic from a little while after I bought her, though:


You can see that she did make a little web dirt tunnel. But a short while later, she destroyed it.

So did I just get lucky? This didn't feel weird to me until recently, when I began getting back into my hyperfixation on this hobby and I suddenly remembered that they're supposed to be fossorial. What about this enclosure, if anything, has discouraged her from burrowing? She doesn't seem to be in any distress, no stress curls, her appetite is fine, especially lately now that my passion has come back. She's always molted fine too, never lost a leg. How can I correct my mistake with the rehouse? Or do you reckon she's doing just fine and is just an oddball amongst the rest of her kind?

 

[jbooth]

"needs more substrate"

 

[jbooth]

Seriously though lol.

 

[Moakmeister]

"needs more substrate"

This made me realize that none of the images show how deep it is. It’s at least three inches deep, I promise.

 

[jbooth]

try 10"

 

[Moakmeister]

try 10"

How’s that gonna help if she never even dug anything at all though

 

[AphonopelmaTX]

The trigger for any tarantula to burrow is insecurity, more or less. The most likely reason this tarantula is not burrowing is because it is already in a smallish container with plenty of junk in there for it to sit next to that makes it feel secure enough to not put in the effort to burrow anywhere. Here is how to set it up to get the best chance to see it burrow and create that signature web-dirt funnel that the species of the genus Ephebopus are known for.

1. Clean the poop off of the sides of the container and remove all cage decorations (cork bark, fake plants, water dish, etc.)
2. Use something like the cardboard tube of a paper towel roll, aluminum foil roll, or anything with a diameter of about one to two inches and put it in a corner of the container all the way down to the bottom.
3. Fill the container about half way to two thirds of the way with damp soil and tightly pack it around the cardboard tube (or whatever you used from step 2). I like the previous suggestion of at least 10 inches of soil.
4. Slowly pull out the cardboard tube from the corner and you will have a nice deep vertical starter burrow.
5. At this stage if you don't already have a lot of ventilation in the lid of the container, add it now.
6. Put the tarantula back in, but do not add any cage decorations or water dishes.
7. Put the lid back on, set your newly housed Ephebopus murinus on a shelf or table in a dark room, and just wait.

The reason this works is because the lack of cage decorations and the increase in ventilation will make the tarantula feel insecure which will trigger it to find and use the starter burrow. The starter burrow has to be in a corner because the tarantula will interpret the walls of the container as something sturdy to build against and the 90 degree angle will make it think it is hidden. People don't usually consider that, like rats and mice, tarantulas like to walk up against something tall and sturdy like a wall to stay out of sight, and the choice of location for burrowing is something on the ground that provides some kind of cover. Tarantulas of all kinds make every effort to keep their homes hidden. Using a small piece of cork bark, or anything with little height, will not be enough for the tarantula to interpret as something solid to dig under. In other words, if a tarantula can step over it easily, it isn't going to hide under it and thus it won't burrow under it.

Also worth considering is that this all might not work. The last time I had a large adult female Ephebopus murinus it was so chill that it never really burrowed and acted like I expected it to. Sometimes a tarantula will feel secure enough in many different caging configurations that you will never get to see it do "its thing." These instructions are just to give you the best chance to see this species do its famous landscaping and sculpting.