Living with tarantulas native to your area?

Flutterbat

Arachnopeon
Joined
Jul 27, 2016
Messages
23
One thing that I have always thought about is what it would be like to live around wild tarantulas.. I know there are some areas of the US with desert species of course, but the largest thing we have here would be a wolf spider. Whats it like? I would love to hear your personal experiences.
 

EulersK

Arachnonomicon
Staff member
Joined
Feb 22, 2013
Messages
3,292
One thing that I have always thought about is what it would be like to live around wild tarantulas.. I know there are some areas of the US with desert species of course, but the largest thing we have here would be a wolf spider. Whats it like? I would love to hear your personal experiences.
I very, very rarely see them unless I'm looking for them. Their camouflage is quite impressive. On top of that, they only come out at night. So, that being said, it's really no different living around them!

Back when I lived more inwards of the city, I absolutely never saw them. But where I live now has raw desert just two blocks away, so I see them every so often.
 

Chris LXXIX

ArachnoGod
Joined
Dec 25, 2014
Messages
5,845
Where I live here in the north we doesn't have T's, but I've heard speculations about some nice 'trapdoors' in certain Lombardy woods.

However, in the South, in Sicilia island, in the wild around Trapani city, we have a native OB Theraphosidae: Ischnocolus triangulifer.

One of the admins of an Italiam forum has one, a WC specimen of course. Needless to say, since I live far away from that area, I can't talk about but as far as I know, the locals never spot that bugger... obviously, always under those burrows :-s
 

chanda

Arachnoking
Old Timer
Joined
Jun 27, 2010
Messages
2,229
I live in Southern California where we have several native species of Aphonopelma (both full-sized and dwarf). I love our big tarantulas, but the truth is that they're very discrete and you hardly ever see them unless you go out looking for them. Once, nearly 20 years ago (long before I started keeping inverts) I went out at night to take out the trash and found one on my back fence. I ran to get my camera, but by the time I returned, it was gone.

I didn't see another wild tarantula for close to 15 years. Once I started teaching summer school classes about bugs and spiders, I started going out bug hunting in the local canyons - especially at night, when the spiders and scorpions and centipedes are out. I still don't find them often, but once in a while one will wander along - particularly on warm summer nights. Finally, about a year and a half ago, someone told me about a better place to look for them. It's another canyon that looks very much like the others that I'd been hiking in, but it does seem to have a larger tarantula population. I find at least one nearly every time I'm out there - but usually it's the mature males that are out walking around.

In addition to the ones I've seen when specifically looking for them at night, I've also found a few quite by accident. There was a cute little dwarf Aphonopelma that showed up in my garage one night a few years ago. There was another one that showed up (dead) on my doorstep one morning. And then there's the one in my profile picture - a mature male that I found stuck in a tree one morning while I was out hiking. He was dangling from a branch by his front legs like the "Hang in there, baby!" kitten that decorated so many offices and cubicles a few years back.

I love living in an area that has tarantulas - but if you were one of those misguided people who disliked tarantulas, you could still live out here quite comfortably and probably never even know they were here unless you went out looking for them.
 
Last edited:

Tenevanica

Arachnodemon
Joined
Feb 18, 2015
Messages
726
We've got a few Aphonopelma in Colorado, but I don't think their range extends North enough to where I am. I've only ever seen them on trips to Pueblo.
 

z32upgrader

Arachnobaron
Old Timer
Joined
Mar 13, 2012
Messages
366
Where I used to live in Northern Arizona, wild A. chalcodes were a two minute drive to my nearest park. I had the luxury of being able to visit the same spiders year after year plus feed captive bred roaches and even pair with mature males. I have some videos on my YouTube Channel.
 

Andy00

Arachnoknight
Joined
Feb 4, 2016
Messages
153
I've taken a few trips down to pueblo, Colorado to look for T's but I came back with 2 centruroides vittatus bark scorpions and a gravid camel spider eremobates pallipes. I might go down there again soon to look for T's but I don't know of any specific places that are good and have a good population. It's pretty cool knowing there somewhere only a few hours away.
 

BorisTheSpider

No this is Patrick
Old Timer
Joined
May 26, 2009
Messages
488
The only Ts that you find in my neck of the woods live in private collections or in pet shops for the less fortunate ones .
 

chanda

Arachnoking
Old Timer
Joined
Jun 27, 2010
Messages
2,229
I've taken a few trips down to pueblo, Colorado to look for T's but I came back with 2 centruroides vittatus bark scorpions and a gravid camel spider eremobates pallipes. I might go down there again soon to look for T's but I don't know of any specific places that are good and have a good population. It's pretty cool knowing there somewhere only a few hours away.
Ooo! How'd it go with the camel spider? Did she lay eggs for you? Did you get offspring? I've got a gravid solifugid (species unknown) that I caught in Phoenix a few months ago and I'm really hoping for some babies.
 

Andy00

Arachnoknight
Joined
Feb 4, 2016
Messages
153
Ooo! How'd it go with the camel spider? Did she lay eggs for you? Did you get offspring? I've got a gravid solifugid (species unknown) that I caught in Phoenix a few months ago and I'm really hoping for some babies.
She laid all her eggs at the bottom of her enclosure, and I think I can kind of see them developing. She's gravid again so I'm expecting another "batch" hopefully all goes well. I'll be releasing most of them in the same place I found her.
 

chanda

Arachnoking
Old Timer
Joined
Jun 27, 2010
Messages
2,229
She laid all her eggs at the bottom of her enclosure, and I think I can kind of see them developing. She's gravid again so I'm expecting another "batch" hopefully all goes well. I'll be releasing most of them in the same place I found her.
That's fantastic! Best of luck with them. What size enclosure are you keeping her in?
 

Andy00

Arachnoknight
Joined
Feb 4, 2016
Messages
153
That's fantastic! Best of luck with them. What size enclosure are you keeping her in?
It's one of those mainstays 1 gallon plastic containers from Walmart. It's a good size for her. I mixed up topsoil and peat moss for substrate but the topsoil is basically sand haha. She burrows fine through it but eventually the burrow collapses and she makes a new one. When she's hungry she's walking around her enclosure at night looking in every corner. I put in some cork bark and a little fake plant to hide under.
 

The Snark

Dumpster Fire of the Gods
Old Timer
Joined
Aug 8, 2005
Messages
11,044
One thing that I have always thought about is what it would be like to live around wild tarantulas.. I know there are some areas of the US with desert species of course, but the largest thing we have here would be a wolf spider. Whats it like? I would love to hear your personal experiences.
Slightly less exciting than taking your pet rock for a walk.
http://arachnoboards.com/threads/hole.264716/
http://arachnoboards.com/threads/hole-dweller.267690/

By the way, the dirt here, read substrate. 10% to 20% sandy loam, the rest pretty high grade clay. During the dry season too hard to sink a shovel in more than an inch or two. They have no problem at all digging an 8 to 10 inch deep hole.
 

viper69

ArachnoGod
Old Timer
Joined
Dec 8, 2006
Messages
17,851
There's a town I visit that has tarantulas in the hundreds crossing the road, sometimes more.
 

chanda

Arachnoking
Old Timer
Joined
Jun 27, 2010
Messages
2,229
There's a town I visit that has tarantulas in the hundreds crossing the road, sometimes more.
I have heard about these marvelous tarantula migrations for years but never been fortunate enough to witness one. I've heard they occur in parts of Arizona and California during the fall. Have you been there at the right time and seen them crossing like that? Where is it? I might have to make some travel plans!
 
Top