Id imagine it could be? Depends on where you live and all. Im not a big climatologist or a genius geography student so I dont know how temps change with elevation. I just know higher=colder. Everyone will keep their spiders a bit differently than the others
Very cool indeed. As I stated they need humidity and they live in high elevation. Don't let this species dry out at all they will parish quickly. Megaphobema robustum is the opposite you can keep them dry like Xenesthis spp. And they will do fine.Cool story cold blood! Def don't have those kind of LPS in my area either... glad to see this thread has taken off, though no one seems to be able to point me in the direction of one for sale
Like I said, when in Costa Rica, we saw plenty postcards and photos of the species, so figured it had to be somewhat accessible to the hobby! Once I started researching, realized how I was wrong.
Also, too bad that people started arguing about care taking. Figured I'd provide some info and photos to support the thread though.
So here goes some pic heavy content...
---------- Post added 12-09-2015 at 07:53 PM ----------
As far as I know, species is found mostly in the cloud forests of Monte Verde in North/Central Costa Rica. The area was noticeably more humid and cooler than lower elevation parts of the country. Very foggy/misty and wet, with not much direct sunshine I remember.
You can see the fog rolling through the valley, and the active Arenal Volcano in the second shot with my silly wife.
---------- Post added 12-09-2015 at 08:00 PM ----------
There were a series of hanging bridges along the hiking trails, with one aptly named!
Along the trails we saw some cool stuff, including these shots (as well as bats, sloths, monkeys, macaws) but no tarantulas!
---------- Post added 12-09-2015 at 08:10 PM ----------
Notice the wetness in the pics though too... I would say it supports the argument that they need extra moisture in captivity.
When we got back to the community center, we asked a local guide who was hanging out about any spider spottings. He immediately directed us to a stone wall nearby, where he said a tarantula had been spotted days earlier. We peaked in, and got our only shots of a Megaphobema Mesomelas (we believe) in the wild (or any tarantula for that matter while on the trip).
Kind of lame, but we were still excited :biggrin:
We were also able to extract a molt from the burrow, though no telling if it was this girl's or even the same species.
---------- Post added 12-09-2015 at 08:16 PM ----------
Hope you enjoy the photos, and maybe that was a little helpful in supporting any arguments about husbandry too!
Just for fun, here are a few more pics of wild life in CR that we took in other lower elevation areas.
These huge iguanas were in the tree tops, while the confident gators basked down below them in the river beds.
This last one was taken in a brackish mangrove, hanging out in a tree as we canoed along.
Its not that simple, like Tom stated, and I really wouldn't be so optimistic with someone bringing slings/juvies/subadults/adults to a fare.
Here is how few people managed to buy Megaphobema mesomelas, in authorized T's fairs. They keep those at a max temperature of 22° (max) with an always moist substrate (lots of inches).I really wouldn't be so optimistic with someone bringing slings/juvies/subadults/adults to a fare.
I'm going to second the above opinion here. I have been looking for M. mesomelas this year and to my disappointment, learned it is a smuggled species. Several wild-collected sacs have been smuggled into the EU lately, along with adults, semi-adults, and perhaps a few "lucky sacs" from females paired in the wild. They will come to the US as an isolated wave in 2016 I am told. M. mesomelas is tough to breed, with one experienced breeder telling me she's tried for 7 years without success. An EU breeder tells me a sac takes 10 months of incubation with narrow incubation parameters. All of the above suggests current husbandry techniques may be enough to keep them alive in some hands, but if reproduction is a measure of thriving in captivity, we are falling short. One should keep M. mesomelas if one could afford to light on fire the money spent, yes indeed. One should not keep them at all unless one had a deep commitment to determining what was necessary and sufficient to breeding them in captivity. Without the last requirement, those who buy them achieve no more than supporting the smuggling of yet another difficult-to-breed species from the New World.
Thank you for mentioning this, I had forgotten it - another reason why they shouldn't be in the hobby is that they're beautiful and albeit the price, they are quickly sold and when most of them die, there is more demand and with the localities well-known, people go there and smuggle even more, to meet the demands... Why should we promote this?
Soooooo beautiful thoI raised a pair of mesomelas several years ago. They matured a few years back.
They were a bit** to keep. Each specimen was housed in a separate part of the house, where I would have that specific room for them set at 60 degrees, 50 at night, humidity was 65-85% depending on the time of the day and if I forgot to fill the humidifier.
They grew fast in these conditions believe it or not. Within two and a half, maybe three years, they were mature. Male matured two months after the female did.
They mated when the female was ready, but sadly, she never produced. Gained a large amount of weight, but she molted out on me.
Last time I keep/try to breed this species.
This is the only picture I kept of them.
I ended up selling this female to a good friend who lived in COLD conditions. She was thriving for a while, molted once or twice with no complications. He spent a large amount of time hunting down some males for her, and when he finally tracked some down, and received them, she randomly died. Just blows.