My Australian non-T primitives

[RezonantVoid]

ITS FINALLY HERE

the short awaited Namea update!

So once again, apologies for not updating in a while, ive had my hands full with my first batch of tarantula slings, which has taken up alot of my hobby time over the last few weeks.

Now getting straight to the point, Nemesiidae are easily the rarest family of spiders we have in the country. From Ixamatus to Xamiatus, Stanwellia to Namea, most of the genre here are rarely found outside national parks.

As I believe I mentioned on page one, Wishbone spiders get their name from their "Y" shaped burrow structure, with one open visible hole and a second entry that some species keep hidden with a trapdoor as a secret escape route. This twin entry is very visible with my N.Salanitri


An exception to this is the genus Xamiatus, the largest and rarest wishbone spiders in the world, with just a single tube burrow. I have had the privilege of keeping a mature male X.Illara before and these things are damn beautiful.

So, let's start with my N.Salanitri, or Red Headed Wishbone Spider.

She's just come out of a molt so this is the only new photo I have of her, but it's enough to see her gorgeous red, black and silver colouration. She's from an area called Broken Hill, and was very kindly donated to me by a private property owner with lots of them on his property.

This is a very underrated species in my opinion, as during their smaller stages they look very dull brown and unappealing. In fact, I had no idea they even got this colourful when I received her, but boy am I glad I did. She's around the 3" DLS mark, so quite large, but Xamiatus sp. can grow to 4"+, making them the size of small tarantulas. She will be getting an enclosure upgrade soon as well.

Next, Namea sp. Mallee, the surprise freeby that is doing very well. Not much info available on this one, but I can vouch for her energy and how photogenic she is.


Similar appearance to Salanitri, but more vibrant orange and gold compared to the darker red. Here she is stuffing her face.


Now next is my last Namea sp., Namea sp. Tambourine "Black", and this little jerk has been what I believe deliberately frustrating my photography plans all week. She's fresh out of a molt, absolutely huge, gorgeous and jet black, and suddenly lost her confidence to appear on camera. I have got her fully outside once, and then NYOOOM she disappears when the camera focusses. I have tried luring, leaving the lid and room lights off, everything. But in the end all I got was this...

Laugh at me all you want, I take this as an absolute victory

She comes from probably my #1 favourite spider area, Mt Tambourine, but I've never seen them there personally. This rainforest mountain is home to Hadronyche Valida AND Formidabilis, at least 4 different Arbanitis species, 2 different Euoplos species including one palisade, spotted trapdoors (unsure of their family), Stanwellia and Namea species, and hundreds more others including many different true spiders. If you're ever visiting Australia, I highly recommend making it a stopping point and taking the Curtis Falls track and Botanical gardens tour. You can see almost 10 different species of primitive spiders in only a few square metres!

Alright, now Ive fulfilled my Namea info request, I will start work on my next update, all the slings in my collection! Hope everyone enjoys this little read

 

[The Snark]

and this little jerk has been what I believe deliberately frustrating my photography plans all week.

Week? It took me almost 2 years to get a pic of my hole dweller!

 

[Arthroverts]

Awesome! Incredible info, visiting Mt. Tambourine has been added to the bucket list. Thank you @RezonantVoid!
Looking forward to the next installment of one of my favorite threads...

Thanks,

Arthroverts

 

[RezonantVoid]

Awesome! Incredible info, visiting Mt. Tambourine has been added to the bucket list. Thank you @RezonantVoid!
Looking forward to the next installment of one of my favorite threads...

Thanks,

Arthroverts

You won't regret it. It's very close to the Gold Coast which most tourists visit anyway, And being a rainforest area, has an incredible abundance of awesome wildlife on top of just spiders

 

[Staehilomyces]

Can vouch for that. On part of the Curtis falls track, there were H. valida webs under nearly every rock. Never managed to lure one out though.


There's also a place at Mt. Coot-tha (just outside Brisbane city) where H. infensa are everywhere. Most of the place is too dry for them, but there's small moist pockets near the creeks. Here's a web with a sizeable molt near it.

 

[RezonantVoid]

Can vouch for that. On part of the Curtis falls track, there were H. valida webs under nearly every rock. Never managed to lure one out though.
View attachment 327303

There's also a place at Mt. Coot-tha (just outside Brisbane city) where H. infensa are everywhere. Most of the place is too dry for them, but there's small moist pockets near the creeks. Here's a web with a sizeable molt near it.
View attachment 327304

Excellent photography, I'm planning on doing a web run down of all our primitives soon. And yes, Valida are very difficult to lure out on a good day. Definitely not like H.Macq

 

[Staehilomyces]

Cheers. By the way, I found a couple H. formidabilis webs today, at Springbrook national park.

 

[RezonantVoid]

Excellent! Although I hate it when they are inaccessible because of their position. It's good at Tambourine as they are often in the rotting treestumps which are easy to break apart

 

[Dave1969]

Cheers. By the way, I found a couple H. formidabilis webs today, at Springbrook national park.
View attachment 327430
View attachment 327431

Nice examples there.

 

[Pepper]

Very cool thread. Thanks so much!

 

[Staehilomyces]

Excellent! Although I hate it when they are inaccessible because of their position. It's good at Tambourine as they are often in the rotting treestumps which are easy to break apart

Yeah, me and my mate tried to lure them out, to no avail.
By the way, how's yours? Heard it molted again.

 

[RezonantVoid]

Yeah, me and my mate tried to lure them out, to no avail.
By the way, how's yours? Heard it molted again.

Yea she did, she's doing pretty good still. Still a bit camera shy but here she is catching a cricket just now

 

[Staehilomyces]

Looks cool. Some of my FWs are a pain to feed - my new versuta only ever takes it from the tongs, as does one of my cerberea. Probably cause they haven't really webbed much up yet.

 

[RezonantVoid]

Looks cool. Some of my FWs are a pain to feed - my new versuta only ever takes it from the tongs, as does one of my cerberea. Probably cause they haven't really webbed much up yet.

Interesting, tong feeding almost never works for any of mine aside from Formidabilis. Goes to show they have personal preferences for sure

 

[Staehilomyces]

Yeah...as a side note, most of my infensa slings seem to have stopped eating. They've all recently molted, but usually they'll eat a couple days after. This time, some haven't eaten for a week after.

 

[RezonantVoid]

Yeah...as a side note, most of my infensa slings seem to have stopped eating. They've all recently molted, but usually they'll eat a couple days after. This time, some haven't eaten for a week after.

The intresting thing with my Formidabilis is there was only a bit over a month between her 2 molts. Powerfeeding combined with the higher temperatures are a recipe for speed growth, so it wouldn't surprise me if maybe they are already heading for a second molt and just have synchronised molt cycles

 

[Staehilomyces]

Oddly, one of my infensa slings regained normal eating habits after molting, but the rest haven't shown themselves at all. Also, my valida appears to be premolt again.

 

[RezonantVoid]

I havnt abandoned the thread yet, but have been extremely busy with new slings, work, and battling the "Imortal Mold". Before new years photos, i wanted to get some sad updates out of the way.

First up, it looks like he Australothele Nambucca pairing was not successful or the female already laid but ate the eggsac.

The second, even worse update is a heavy loss to the collection. My first Missulena Bradleyi specimen.


I have absolutely zero clue what caused her death, but she was almost due to lay an eggsac. If she did lay, it would have been the first recorded captive breeding of this species despite their large wild distribution.

Still hoping to get the sling update up in the next few days, just wanted to announce the sad stuff first

 

[Arthroverts]

Sorry to hear that man. I hope you will be successful with both species in the near future.

Thanks,

Arthroverts

 

[The Snark]

Spiders are bizarrely fussy in captivity with building materials.

Something that just occurred to me regarding materials in enclosures. How does a keeper choose what materials and substrate go into a terrarium? You have heard things from other keepers. Seen other enclosures. Tried different materials to see what works. Trial and error stuff.
Okay, now, think, imagine, what materials a spider prefers? How does it arrive at those decisions? What senses are being used? Eyesight? Tactile? Auditory picked up in the setae? Maybe it has some olfactory cells in it's knees or someplace? And of course, a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy.... of a genetic instruction manual, abridged, 145,934,781,202 edition.
Then with all that data, how does the spider brain process it? Certainly nothing remotely like how a human brain shuffles and deals the cards.

So along comes the avid dedicated keeper with it's opinions and conclusions and totally alien set of senses and data processing and installs the absolute perfect furnishing for the enclosure. And the trap door model X-714 series 4000003.8 climbs to the top of a piece of bark and refuses to eat. Houston, we may have a minor problem here.