My rosea dug a "crater" but why?

[SPIDERBYTE]

I fed her yesterday evening, and after she was done, she came out of her hide. I handled her a bit, mostly crawling from hand to hand, maybe 15 mins.
Then I put her back in the cage, and she did her usual crawling around before settling down. (1130-1159pm)

However, she started "pawing" up the substrate under her hiding log, and began to "excavate" most of the substrate behind it. She almost got down to the cage bottom even!

I woke up at 5:00am and she was still crawling around! As dawn approached, she finally went for her usual hiding log, and is still there at 9:20am.

This is what she did just last night:
My guesses
-She did not care for being handled and is working on a new hiding spot?
-She only just now discovered that she can dig in the "eco-earth"

Quite a pit she had dug, I wonder if I should leave it, or put more substrate to fill it in (probably wont like that). There was an existing dip in the substrate level right behind her hiding log, that could be enough to encourage burrowing?

 

[Windchaser]

How big is your G. rosea? When did you get it? Do you know if it is wild caught? Do you know its sex? Has it ever molted in your care? The reasons I ask these questions is that this type of behaviour is indictative of getting ready to lay an egg sac. If you recently purchased it as an adult, it is quite possible you have a gravid, wild caught female.

 

[SPIDERBYTE]

I've only had her a couple of weeks, and I *think* she's a captive bred spider.
No moults with me, and she's eating every cricket she gets, so it's not pre-moult. She's pretty small, I'd say a young adult spider...
here's some pics, maybe you can tell how old she looks by her size?
Btw.. her fangs are barely 1cm long.

 

[Windchaser]

Where did you get her? What makes you think it is a captive bred tarantula? If you bought it from any type of chain pet store, it is most likely wild caught. From your picture she (if it is a female) looks large enough to be of breeding age.

BTW, there is no way to estimate the age of a tarantula. There growth rate is determined by many factors such as feeding and temperature. Unless you know when it was hatched, it is impossible to know the age of a tarantula.

 

[SPIDERBYTE]

Wouldn't her abdomen be a *lot* bigger if she was gonna moult or was gravid? I called the Pet Outfitters shop, and they are like 90% sure they get captive bred Roseas. There's another guy there that would know for sure, but he's not in till 2:00pm. Eeek! I hope it's not gravid, I don't think I'd be ready for 100+ slings!

When I got her, she had a slightly skinny abdomen, it was smaller than her carapace.

 

[Windchaser]

I had the same thing happen to me last year. I purchased an adult G. rosea from a PetCo when I was in buying crickets. My kids fell in love with her while we were waiting for our crickets. Mine didn't look especially large and about a month or so after I brought her home, she laid an egg sac.

BTW, I am not aware of many dealers who carry large numbers of adult G. roseas. I would suspect that you have a wild caught speciman, regardless of what the pet shop tells you. The only way to know for sure would be to talk to the supplier directly.

BTW, most G. rosea egg sacs are in the 200 to 500 range.

Good luck.

 

[Bigboy]

In response to your should I fill it in or not question the answer is that you should leave it be. If she is indeed preparing to make an eggsac then she is going to use the space to lay out a sheet of silk to wrapp her newly laid eggs into. Though, she doesn't look gravid to me, so another possibility is that she is just in the digging mood. In anycase you're probably right in guessing that she wouldn't appreciate having her new home/pit filled up. If she does have babies then at least she paid for herself, am I right?

 

[Puppet Master]

Well my Rosie is a female and has not molted in my care, I have had her for about a month and a 1/2. my rosie has dug a hole but she filled it with her food bits and coverd it up, know she had 2 new holes around her tank.

 

[Windchaser]

If she does have babies then at least she paid for herself, am I right?

Not necessarily the case with a species like G. rosea. When you factor in the cost of vials/deli cups, a ton of crickets and your time, the amount you can actually sell them for doesn't necessarily make up for the expense. Species like G. rosea, P. murinus, L. paraybana and a few others are hard to actually make money on. I think I was near the break even point with my G. rosea egg sac.

 

[cacoseraph]

BTW, I am not aware of many dealers who carry large numbers of adult G. roseas. I would suspect that you have a wild caught speciman, regardless of what the pet shop tells you. The only way to know for sure would be to talk to the supplier directly.

i agree fully, an adult G. rosea female, raised from egg to maturity would be bare minimum... like, probably pretty seriously wrong minimum... 5 years old. more likely they are 7 or even 10. estimates for mature females captured from the wild are like 10-20 years old.

oh! another thing to thing about A LOT with G. rosea is that they do not molt at all reliably in captivity. i'm assuming this is significantly different when spiderlings and they molt with more frequency... but older immatures should have the same problems matures have and molt infrequently. this would contraindicate CB adults.

of course, all that being said, i have no doubt there are, in fact, a small number of CB adult female. but i reckon they would be special and not likely to be bought on accident.

i could be wrong though

 

[MizM]

IMHO, it looks suspiciously like an egg bowl.

 

[SPIDERBYTE]

I talked to the other guy at the Pet Outfitters shop, he's also quite sure the G. roseas he gets are captive bred. But he's going to check anyway for me.

 

[MizM]

T behavior questions are almost impossible to answer, because we don't know what KIND of behavior people expect from their Ts. They do dig, walk around, burrow, masticate things in their enclosure, defecate, lay webbing, etc. There is no telling why your T dug that hole, she could have done it simply because she "likes" it that way! You will find that many Ts will manipulate their environment to their suiting. Ask every A. seemani owner on the board about water dishes filled with substrate!

When my Ts "redecorate", I don't interfere. Leave the hole where it is. If she didn't want it there, she wouldn't have dug it. And, if she DOES happen to be WC, or was housed with a male at some point in her adult life, lucky you! She could just be preparing the nursery!

 

[Windchaser]

I talked to the other guy at the Pet Outfitters shop, he's also quite sure the G. roseas he gets are captive bred. But he's going to check anyway for me.

Again, very few, if any, of the dealers that supply tarantulas will hold unto G. roseas until they reach adult size. These are a very slow growing tarantula (my 8 month old slings that hatched last year are still only about 1/2 to 3/4 of an inch in size). This particular species does not bring in much money and are not worth it to dealers to care for them for years to only make a few bucks on it. Unless you can confirm with the supplier directly that these are captive bred, I would consider it to be wild caught.

BTW, very few pet stores have even the remotest knowledge of tarantulas. Most of what they will tell you is inaccurate.

It wouldn't surprise me in the least if you end up with an egg sac.

 

[Schlyne]

It may have been captive bred at one point, but it may have been housed with a few others..one of those others being a mature male. She could also drop an infertile eggsack.

 

[Cooper]

In reference to Windchasers signature, whoohoo go Gordon Lightfoot! Gotta love him.

On to the thread, what is she doing now?

 

[SPIDERBYTE]

She's back to ger usual hiding log, although one day she was in her "pit" so far, that all I could see was the spinnerets on her butt, and a couple of rear feet!
She also found the bark chips that were under the "eco-earth", and seems to have deliberately dragged some in under her hiding log.
I have seen her once in the act of moving individual bark chips (when I had 100% bark chips as a substrate). She does occasionally move stuff around, usually in the wee hours of the morning, and by 6:00am, she's making her way towards one of her hiding areas.

She hides most of the day and comes out only if it's pretty dark. I have a flashlight with a red light filter that I use to watch her when she does come out.

After I handle her, (maybe once or twice a week), she goes and does her "cleaning" ritual. Maybe she feels "dirty" after a crawl over my hands :lol
I try to respect her hiding areas though by not disturbing her when she's in one of those areas.

 

[connor3k]

If the tempature is too ho tin the ank it will try burrow to keep cool

 

[SPIDERBYTE]

Well, I don't have any cage heater devices, but my computer, xbox, and TV are in the same room, some days it gets to 27 deg.c. The cpu box is only a couple feet away from the T's cage. I guess my whole room is a "cage heater"

 

[Richard_uk]

This is quite interesting!
My red phase rosie has been doing the same thing. Also, she has become so fat she can hardly move and she has only eaten about 5 crickets in the few months I have had her. On top of this she has now develo[ped a bit of an attitude problem and throws up a threat pose if I even open the tank. should I expect the patter of tiny feet?