Isn't it impossible to tame a Tarantula?

[DamoK21]

Would you mind at least pretending that English isn't your fourth language?

And your statements are just silly... I am better than lots of people. YOU, also, are probably better than lots of other people. Maybe I'm better than you... who knows. Better WITH REGARDS TO WHAT is the question, and here is where "fluffy bunny hobbyists" fall down into a puddle of logical incoherency. Just because you have an opinion on something doesn't make it valid or immune to critique... likewise, just because you do have a valid, thoughtful opinion on something doesn't necessarily make you "better" than someone else in another area.

I guess what I'm saying is that you need to focus and use words that actually have meaning in the context to which you're trying to apply them. Ranting about how your opinion is immune to critique simply because it happened to pop into your head and yelling at anyone who disagrees with you that "they're not better than you" is a horrible way to go about having a discussion.

If this turns into another flame war, I'm just locking it. Many of you are completely incapable of having a decent discussion.

no english is my first language but because i am a computer scientist alot of words are completly diffrent to the english dictionary sorry .......

yea ya right on the whole diffrent and better thing but ya no

sorry for the bad spelling if you saw what i wrote in computer language on a day to day basis it becomes some what your vocabulary but ya no ;P

 

[xhexdx]

no english is my first language but because i am a computer scientist alot of words are completly diffrent to the english dictionary sorry .......

yea ya right on the whole diffrent and better thing but ya no

sorry for the bad spelling if you saw what i wrote in computer language on a day to day basis it becomes some what your vocabulary but ya no ;P

Really? I'm a computer programmer...

What language(s) do you use?

 

[Xian]

no english is my first language but because i am a computer scientist alot of words are completly diffrent to the english dictionary sorry .......

yea ya right on the whole diffrent and better thing but ya no

sorry for the bad spelling if you saw what i wrote in computer language on a day to day basis it becomes some what your vocabulary but ya no ;P

I thought spelling and syntax were crucial to computer programming?

 

[xhexdx]

I thought spelling and syntax were crucial to computer programming?

You thought correctly.

I figure I'd take the liberty to bold some of his original post, in hopes he can explain how these words are used in 'computer language':

agreed with xsyorra but i must say to some of the hobbyist's out there "WHY ON EARTH ARE YOU IN THIS HOBBY ??"

yea ok they aint exactly "eine stein" nor are they govner of any country but they are "NOT STUPID" so as for the whole they dont no much or this n that or every "SP" is exactly the same is just saying to me "That Hobbyist Dont No Anything"

they aint stupid they aint in any way the same as every other allthough they have familiar behavours but dont humans ?? we bath we eat we fight we do alot in common with each other but were all diffrent .... so although i agree with "xsyorra" i simply belive that no 1 in the hobby has the right to "judge" any animal in there care...

If (i use this word strongly) IF tarantulas are all the same and all become so stressed when handled (which im not denying) then what i would like to no is "How many of you has had a "T" groom them selfs on you ??" coz i have so as for the whole "Is it a bad idea" or "Are they stupid" or "can they be tamed" my answer to that is ...

Dont judge the animal if the hobby noes nothing about it !!

and alot of you will disagree i no it but ya no what for those who do ask your selfs this "If we new enough about these animals then WHY on earth cant any 1 recognise there all diffrent there all single living not double and on top of that THEY ARE NOT STUPID !!"

so id have to say all in all no 1 can give that answer because no one has even attempted to try it although science and so on will say diffrent...

i saw a post on how T's may actually be able to be tamed all in all it a bit of a proccess but if any one is willing to say a tarantula cant do nothing then ill say this "YOULL BE SUPRISED"

Anyway...I won't pick apart any further will we see what he says.

I wait with bated breath.

 

[Merfolk]

You can pick this whole 'do they tame' and 'should I handle them' discussion apart all you want...it boils down to a set of variables that, when all addressed together, will give you your answer.

These are the variables I have personally identified as being directly related to handling a spider:

• Species
• Size
• Handler's experience
• Individual spider's 'mood'

[
--Joe

I would add some variable factors that have yet to be understood. Some people simply have it, others not. It's a bit like Jimi Hendrix... anybody else trying to play his guitar generated nothing but feedback but when he took it back, the noise stopped and his trademark sound resumed. Perhaps it was his bone density or else I don't know... but there is an unexplainable factor that made him able to do it.

Same goes for us hobbyists. You'll have a guy walking through a collection and juggling cheerfully with S calceatum and Pokies and the next guy walking in the same collection 5 minutes later will get bit while cleaning a Rosie's waterdish. Why??? You can't explain everything. Do people taste differently, can they feel our stress or other energy we radiate?... nobody knows yet!!!

 

[Mister Internet]

no english is my first language but because i am a computer scientist alot of words are completly diffrent to the english dictionary sorry .......

yea ya right on the whole diffrent and better thing but ya no

sorry for the bad spelling if you saw what i wrote in computer language on a day to day basis it becomes some what your vocabulary but ya no ;P

Are you kidding me? I've been computer-related professional for over ten years now... I used to program and configure systems that cost 10X more than my house. At one point I was in charge of a $1M business unit comprised of top-flight programmers.

I never gave the resumes of people that talked that a second look, no matter how good they were. You didn't use ONE SINGLE WORD that was computer-industry specific, so your excuse falls apart.

Sorry, I get a little heated when people try to present themselves as a "computer person" as the reason they can't spell or write better than a grade-schooler.

All I was asking was for you to try to help people out by typing in readable English, that's all. It's nothing personal.

Can't we all just agree that Tarantulas can become ACCUSTOMED to certain stimuli, but cannot be TRAINED towards predictable responses to those stimuli?

 

[ReMoVeR]

You thought correctly.

I figure I'd take the liberty to bold some of his original post, in hopes he can explain how these words are used in 'computer language':



Anyway...I won't pick apart any further will we see what he says.

I wait with baited breath.

God! LOLOL I'm learning C++ language and i havent seen that. Ofc I do write that way because a lot of english that i learned was from the internet =)

xhexdx i kinda love almost all your posts xD LOL

As to the topic, I have no opinion about since i acept both of the "theories" x)) hehe
I just handled my smithi 2" juvie recently and she was not flickin or nothin but... she ran up my arm, stoped at helbow... took some nice pics and then.. bolted to my back hihi good god my brother was there xD It ended on the other side of my back then to my shoulder and then i got to "pull" her down again was very funny And I handle my Ts rarely so it always amuses me to have them on me. And yes, sometimes, it seems that they just dont want be handled.. If you look for stress signs it will be ok to have a little handle =)


//Tiago

 

[kripp_keeper]

Well I skimmed through(mostly skipped) some of what was said here, so I might be repeating what other have said.


Tarantulas can learn...most people here can testify to that from personal experience. My G. rosea will walk over to the edge of her enclosure and watch me while I feed or perform maintenance on other things. She used to run and hide when I came near her, but now she watches....don't know if she enjoys watching me, or just wants to make sure I'm not messing her stuff up again. Now whether or not they can become "tame" probably depends on your definition of the word. While a tarantula can get used to you; you must ask yourself(with a much more complex brain) would enjoy a giant messing up your bed and letting you crawl around on its hand while other giants stared in aw.

 

[jebbewocky]

because I'm snarky

You thought correctly.

I figure I'd take the liberty to bold some of his original post, in hopes he can explain how these words are used in 'computer language':



Anyway...I won't pick apart any further will we see what he says.

I wait with bated breath.

Fixed that for you.

 

[xhexdx]

Fixed that for you.

Holy crap I'm a mess today!

Thanks.

 

[Xian]

Holy crap I'm a mess today!

Thanks.

Don't beat yourself up just yet.........

The correct spelling is actually bated breath but it’s so common these days to see it written as baited breath that there’s every chance that it will soon become the usual form, to the disgust of conservative speakers and the confusion of dictionary writers. Examples in newspapers and magazines are legion; this one appeared in the Daily Mirror on 12 April 2003: “She hasn’t responded yet but Michael is waiting with baited breath”.


For those who know the older spelling or who stop to consider the matter, baited breath evokes an incongruous image; Geoffrey Taylor humorously (and consciously) captured it in verse in his poem Cruel Clever Cat:

"Sally, having swallowed cheese,
Directs down holes the scented breeze,
Enticing thus with baited breath
Nice mice to an untimely death. "

 

[xhexdx]

Tarantulas can learn...most people here can testify to that from personal experience. My G. rosea will walk over to the edge of her enclosure and watch me while I feed or perform maintenance on other things.

Sorry, but I really don't think your G. rosea has vision sufficient enough to do what you describe.

 

[kripp_keeper]

Sorry, but I really don't think your G. rosea has vision sufficient enough to do what you describe.

Vision or not she still walks over and stands there while I'm there.

 

[xhexdx]

Vision or not she still walks over and stands there while I'm there.

I never said she didn't...what I was implying was that it is (probably) not for the reason you think, that's all.

 

[splangy]

well its funny I had a successful sac within three days of handling the mother.

Correlation does not imply causation.... That's like saying vaccines cause autism just because autism tends to show symptoms around the same time kids are getting vaccines....

From a Biological standpoint, we can clearly see that the answer to whether or not they can be tamed is yes AND no. Individual tarantulas CANNOT be tamed. If you think you are taming them, you're not. You've just anthropomorphized them. Species as a whole can theoretically be tamed through selective breeding, but it would probably take several generations minimum.

First of all... tarantulas are not DUMB just because their brains are small and they don't respond to stimuli the same way you do. By the same token... humans aren't the brightest crayons in the box, we just think we are.

Intelligence is based on a lot of different things. Two of the biggest factors for determining an animal's intelligence is being able to predict and plan, and being able to manipulate the environment to meet certain needs.

Before a molt, tarantulas tend to take certain precautions. For example, they may close off the opening to their burrow, lay down a nice webbing, stop eating, drink more water, etc. The implication here is that they are conscious of the fact that they are about to molt, they're predicting what will be necessary to molt successfully, and they're planning for it. You may argue that it's just "instinct," and yes, part of it is instinct, but regardless, there is planning and predicting that goes into it.

They also, obviously, are able to alter their environment by building their burrows and even reinforcing the sides of their burrowing with webbing. This takes a great deal of intelligence to identify the best place for the burrow, identify the weak spots, determine how much webbing to put, push the dirt up in such a way that they have a nice exit, etc, etc etc. Again, you may argue that it's instinct, but it really does suggest a great deal more intelligence than say a clam that just reacts to immediate stimuli and doesn't change the environment or make accommodations.

The T has developed intelligence in these aspects because as the genetics that we see today were developing, these are the things that helped the T survive. Interacting with humans, however, was not a factor in whether or not they would survive. Genetically, they never developed the skills to interact with humans, because they've never needed to. It would be a waste of brain mass. So, when you hold your tarantula, it doesn't have the ability to adapt to you and decide that you are a friend. That's not part of what's important to them in the grand scheme of things (does this make sense???)

NOW, if we wanted to tame a type of tarantula, I bet we could. Say you start with 1,000 lividums. There's a chance that 2 of them might be a little more chill (just slightly) than all the rest of them. So you kill all 998 of the other ones, and mate the remaining two. Then select the babies that are the calmest and keep going. Eventually, you would get to a point where all (or most) of the offspring are calm and can be handled. This would be a new breed. That's what they did with dogs. At that point, being "tame" WOULD be an important component for survival of those Ts and so it would end up being built into their genetics.

I rest my case.

 

[Draychen]

Interesting topic, I agree with Xysorra, BUT: Someone tell me how a Tarantula learns. I'll give you a hint, it's the same way a common spider learns and similar to quite a few other insects. It also shows the diference between why wild bred Ts and captive bred Ts differ greatly. If you can't answer this basic question, you don't belong in the thread answering the OP's questions

In closing, I will say Xysorra is very close correct. Anything can be 'trained' through stimuli.. It all depends on how much information they can store in their wonderful litt brains. But Ts are diferent in the understandings of science.. Until someone answers the question as to how they learn, I wont delve further into the discussion.

 

[splangy]

Interesting topic, I agree with Xysorra, BUT: Someone tell me how a Tarantula learns. I'll give you a hint, it's the same way a common spider learns and similar to quite a few other insects. It also shows the diference between why wild bred Ts and captive bred Ts differ greatly. If you can't answer this basic question, you don't belong in the thread answering the OP's questions

In closing, I will say Xysorra is very close correct. Anything can be 'trained' through stimuli.. It all depends on how much information they can store in their wonderful litt brains. But Ts are diferent in the understandings of science.. Until someone answers the question as to how they learn, I wont delve further into the discussion.

What do you mean? Like neurologically what processes are going on? Or what types of stimuli would cause a spider to learn?

 

[Draychen]

Interesting topic, I agree with Xysorra, BUT: Someone tell me how a Tarantula learns. I'll give you a hint, it's the same way a common spider learns and similar to quite a few other insects. It also shows the diference between why wild bred Ts and captive bred Ts differ greatly. If you can't answer this basic question, you don't belong in the thread answering the OP's questions

In closing, I will say Xysorra is very close correct. Anything can be 'trained' through stimuli.. It all depends on how much information they can store in their wonderful litt brains. But Ts are diferent in the understandings of science.. Until someone answers the question as to how they learn, I wont delve further into the discussion.

(I'm sorry to do this.. but some of these threads get EXTREMELY annoying when people chime in without scientific fact/conjecture to back them up. Spitting just opnion alone to end up creating a MASSIVE flame on two sides!)

 

[jebbewocky]

Interesting topic, I agree with Xysorra, BUT: Someone tell me how a Tarantula learns. I'll give you a hint, it's the same way a common spider learns and similar to quite a few other insects. It also shows the diference between why wild bred Ts and captive bred Ts differ greatly. If you can't answer this basic question, you don't belong in the thread answering the OP's questions

In closing, I will say Xysorra is very close correct. Anything can be 'trained' through stimuli.. It all depends on how much information they can store in their wonderful litt brains. But Ts are diferent in the understandings of science.. Until someone answers the question as to how they learn, I wont delve further into the discussion.

(I'm sorry to do this.. but some of these threads get EXTREMELY annoying when people chime in without scientific fact/conjecture to back them up. Spitting just opnion alone to end up creating a MASSIVE flame on two sides!)

So how DOES a spider learn? Personally, I would think if they have any learning capacity at all, it would be Pavlovian style classical conditioning. I would think operant conditioning (ie, training) would be completely beyond them. That's completely conjecture on my part. Really, if you know--why not tell us?

 

[Draychen]

My apologies for the double post: I was editing and something went wrong. Anyhow, Tarantulas learn by genetic inheritance. At birth, they come pre-programed with the basics of survival and have limited a limited capicity to learn. HOWEVER, a they do learn, the mothers pass on this aquired information to their young! In the end, the more information learned, the more 'outdated' information is kicked out of their brains.. to then be passed on down again and again. Scientific conjecture would then state: If you kept a mother T in a controlled enviornment and subjected her to differing stimuli, she would in turn pass what she can collect, to her young. Split those Ts up (let's say 2 for example): Keep one female in the same enviornment, and the other in an uncontrolled enviornment. Gradually, over time the Ts continually placed inside the controlled enviornment would lose much of their ability to survive in the wild, but will adapt to her new enviornment. Meanwhile, the Ts inside the uncontrolled encloseure would retain and regain the information to survive in theirs... though it may take each a few birthing cycles to obtain this effect.

The stimuli for example would be things like electro-shock in certain areas. Climbing in certain places to recieve food etc etc. There are many types of stimuli that can be used to effect this. These are just a few examples. The basic portions of their brains function like many creatures.. except so far as science has been able to prove, that is pretty much the extent of it. So, you could train a T (based on conjecture).. but it wouldn't be the T you started with.. it would probably be around the 2nd or 3rd generation babies.


Edit: Basically, mentally through their children, they will adapt extremely quickly to their new sorroundings. Faster than many other creatures.

I wish I had taped the episode. (I'm a Discovery/Animal Planet/History freak ESPECIALLY when it deals with Ts!)