Pale Trapdoor?

Beetleinabottle

Arachnopeon
Joined
May 23, 2017
Messages
5
Say hello to Charlotte, my black African trap-door! This is a picture I took of her while we relocated her to her new container! She's grown drastically within the year and is looking marvelous! She resides in an open insect community tank where she has access to several food sources that fall off of the palm leaves that shadow over her container!

I am a new arachnid enthusiast still learning to take care of spiders. I prefer true spiders, but my very first spiders I owned were dwarf pumpkin patches and dwarf tigers. After my two had passed away from age, I decided to leave the tarantula family in things more interesting. I hope you enjoy these two photos of her!

I'm used to seeing Black African Trapdoors being very black and stout. But mine is about a year-old now, assuming it's a female, and her legs are very pale as well as her thorax being elongated. If you have any advice you can give me on improving her health or lifestyle, please let me know! I'm still learning!



I bought her from a vendor at a reptile convention, because for several months I have been hunting down black trapdoors to replace the loss of my two older dwarf Ts. She showed me (she was bad at her service so didn't talk to me at all but sell the poor thing) that it was a black trapdoor. It's been a year since then and it looked BEAUTIFUL. Unfortunately I couldn't take any pictures at the time so there isn't any before and after. If you could tell me if anything is wrong or right, thank you!
 
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schmiggle

Arachnoking
Joined
Nov 3, 2013
Messages
2,220
That is indeed a lovely spider, though I have no information to add about care. FYI, trapdoors are actually mygalomorphs, not true spiders, and are more closely related to tarantulas than, say, cellar spiders.
 

Beetleinabottle

Arachnopeon
Joined
May 23, 2017
Messages
5
That is indeed a lovely spider, though I have no information to add about care. FYI, trapdoors are actually mygalomorphs, not true spiders, and are more closely related to tarantulas than, say, cellar spiders.
Oh! The more you know! How can I move this post to the correct forum?
 

Ran

Arachnoknight
Joined
Mar 16, 2011
Messages
282
That is a mygalamorph species like Smokehound pointed out but definitely not a Gorgyrella inermis. I have had a female inermis for a few years now and she is very chunky with thick legs. But, yours is beautiful and healthy and should live quite a long time in your care...enjoy her!
 

Beetleinabottle

Arachnopeon
Joined
May 23, 2017
Messages
5
Oh? So if it's a idiops, what exactly is that? So it's not a black African trapdoor? Because she isn't building any doors, another reason why I was concerned! Thank you, Smokehound!
 

AphonopelmaTX

Moderator
Staff member
Joined
May 7, 2004
Messages
1,816
I'm 100% certain this is an Idiops species.
I didn't pay attention when I posted in another thread with this same spider pictured. It is not an Idiops species because the family Idiopidae has the anterior lateral eyes set far in front from the others on the clypeus. The one pictured here has all eight eyes grouped in a rectangular shape. My best guess is that this is an African Nemesiidae species, but there are no visible characters that can be seen in the pictures to confirm it.

Also, Nemesiidae species do not build trap doors but build tube style burrows with no lid. Idiopidae species do.
 
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