Pretty sure I've got some actually. A local dealer got a bunch of spiders in as "Thai Tigers" a while back so a grabbed em up cheap. Have two females left I've grown quite fond of. I'm quite certain they aren't as uncommon as may be thought, they're just recently described is all. Lots of those asian t's are sold unidentified, there was a thread on how to id them a long while back if you do a search I'm certain you will find it.
Hi Soren I have to agree with you I live in the uk and have been looking for this sp. for ages, going on 10/12 years and I've never seen one up close/or for sale. Its funny as I have been sold lots of asian tarantulas under the comen name Thai tiger but we all know comen names are the worst thing for getting an i.d. I've been sold Chilobrachys sp./Haplopelma sp./Orphnaecus sp. its mad as none of them realy look like any of these except may be Chilobrachys andersoni. But then again that more than likely the pics I saw were of just that C.andersoni and not O.andersoni. Sadly I for some reson carnt see the pics you posted Soren,not sure why but thanks for posting them up.
So im guessing that its going to be almost impossible to find?
How sure are you? Have you confirmed the needed characters for identification? I am asking because "Thai tiger" is the common name for ANY ground dwelling tarantula from Thailand. And thus could be anything from Haplopelma longipes, H. minax, H. albostriatum or H. lividum or Ornithoctonus aureotibialis, O. costalis or O. andersoni or Chilobrachys dyscolus or C. andersoni or a whole bunch else ...
It is very rare in the european hobby and I know only a handful of people that has this species (confirmed and proberly indetified). It will remain rare unless the breeding efforts are succesful as the material was collected by private from areas that are not collected from by thai dealers. Here is a picture of a true O. andersoni:
And also I have to ask how can it be recently described when it is 1: the type of the subfamily Ornithoctoninae and the type of the genus Ornithoctonus and 3: was described in 1892 by Pocock?
Regards
Søren
Do you have the pictured spider? If so could you give me some measurements to help verify the species of my spiders? It'd be great experience for me, and I'd love to learn proper identification techniques.
Heh, I was worried I'd have to use a german text. Well, at least I have something interesting to do tomorrow now.Hi Bigboy. You can find the relevant characters in:
von Wirth, V. & B. F. Striffler. Neue Erkenntnisse zur Vogelspinnen -- Unterfamilie Ornithoctoninae, mit Beschreibung von Ornithoctonus aureotibialis sp. n. und Haplopelma longipes sp. n. (Araneae, Theraphosidae). Arthropoda 13(2): 2-27.
The actual spider in the picture belongs to Jean-Michel Verdez, but I have several juvenile offspring from his first breeding.
regards
Søren