Parahybana thread #2: Pigs? Voracious hunters? Hah

Vys

Arachnoprince
Old Timer
Joined
Sep 22, 2002
Messages
1,560
Hmmm. My Potato, as I'm sure you know, molted a week and a half ago(going from a brown potato-colour to something similiar to an adult's, and perhaps 7 inches), and yesterday I tried giving her a cockroach, which she ignored. (It was laying upside down and flipping its legs around frantically some inches away so she should have noticed it.)

Anyway, today I threw in a rather small cricket for her. It landed a few inches away from her, but she didn't react. So the crick starts getting caught in the web-carpet Potato's made, and after much struggling and investigating from the cricket Potato slowly lumbers forward and puts a foot on the crickets head. 3 seconds later - one crick down.
Having heard how piggish these things are supposed to be I throw in another one, practically on Potato. She cowers in fear and takes her dead small cricket into her corner where she spends all her time and starts to slowly digest.

Don't know if anyone had the energy to read through that, but if you did, do you think the gluttonness and ..boldness these things seem to be famous for will pick up?
She took strolls around the cage and sat in impressive positions, looking murderous, and actually oftentimes came lumbering when you did something in her cage, before she molted. Now she's a hare.

EDIT :She doesn't even seem to do the cricket dance
 
Last edited:

Vys

Arachnoprince
Old Timer
Joined
Sep 22, 2002
Messages
1,560
This pic makes it look like a real cozy corner she's made her more or less permanent home. The Hottentott isn't entirely dead, one or two stems or whatnow they should be called, not visible in this picture, look somewhat still living.
 

Attachments

pamandron

Arachnosquire
Old Timer
Joined
Sep 23, 2002
Messages
148
Hi, we have a big girl about 7.5 inches. When we try to feed her a pinkie she acts a little scared. She will eat madagascar roaches and crickets, but that is about all. She doesn't act all that ferocious either.. Maybe the bigger and older they get, they calm down. :) Pam
 

rapunzel

Arachnodemon
Old Timer
Joined
Jan 17, 2003
Messages
750
well, my guy is about 31/2 inches..

annnd I put two crickets in there last night, and they are still there, I am going to take them out. I havent seen a continuous eating frenzy with it...it either eats real well, or it avoids it for periods of time. No in between. And like I stated before, it is picky on what it will eat. At least you got her to eat a single cricket so she isn't starving. That always eases the mind.
 

krystal

Arachnodite
Old Timer
Joined
Jul 18, 2002
Messages
381
the bigger they get, the longer it takes for them to recover post-moult. the only time i ever worry about my t's is during a moult and immediately post-moult, if they are leaking hymogliph, or if they have some other noticable anomaly.
 

vulpina

Arachnoprince
Old Timer
Joined
Jan 26, 2003
Messages
1,943
My big female about 8.5" is not real aggressive in feeding either, she gets the prey in her own good time. She is a long term captive, raised from a s'ling. When I use a pinky she stays away from it for awhile, the pinky/fuzzy flops around for about an hour or so, then I end up leaving the room and checking back and she is feeding. So, maybe with age they do mellow, because when she was little any slight movement elicited a feeding response.

Andy
 

Tangled WWWeb

Arachnodemon
Old Timer
Joined
Nov 4, 2002
Messages
706
I currently have 4 L. parahybanas ranging from 2" to 8" only one of which is an aggressive feeder. IME, L. difficilis and L. striatipes are far more willing to tackle whatever is offered to them. Also, as Krystal noted, larger T's generally fast longer before and after molts.

John
 

Vys

Arachnoprince
Old Timer
Joined
Sep 22, 2002
Messages
1,560
.. And I found like 1 acoount out of 10 that said they would not be aggressive feeders as adults before I got her.. :(
So small, ugly and voracious, or large, pretty and mellow ?
 

Venom

Arachnoprince
Old Timer
Joined
Jul 21, 2002
Messages
1,700
Nice T!

BTW, Is that an exuvium in the background of your pic?
 

Maggie

Arachnosquire
Old Timer
Joined
Jan 6, 2003
Messages
114
I have absolutely no experience with the adults of the species....
But our sling is a eating machine, his favorite food is spikes (maggots) but just about anything is taken immediately. I also have a a Bolivian Salmon Pink (A. chacoana?) that is quite the pig.
Maybe try something other than a cricket? Just a suggestion.:)
Oh, my youngest girl thought ours looked like a potato too.:D
Now i am interested to see if this one gets more mellow/less voracious as it gets older.....
 

Vys

Arachnoprince
Old Timer
Joined
Sep 22, 2002
Messages
1,560
Yes, it's an exuvium. I must be imagining things, but right now I think she looks smaller than before :p
 

krystal

Arachnodite
Old Timer
Joined
Jul 18, 2002
Messages
381
hey vys--
give her some time to pump tarantula blood to her legs--i promise you will look at her and be amazed. especially when she stretches out!
 

BullF-16

Arachnopeon
Joined
Mar 15, 2003
Messages
16
I had a very similar experience with my 7 inch T blondi. She molted for the first time with me 12 days ago. I waited 5 days to offer food (crix, pinkies, mealworms) she was not interested. yesterday I offered a crick and she jumped and devoured it in less than 3 seconds, so i went and bought a 5 inch anole lizard and threw it in, about 5 seconds later.......WAM, completely gone in about 30 min. Came home tonight and threw in a crick....wam, gone in 10 sec. Seems the larger species take longer to get their appitite back.
 
Last edited:

minax

Arachnoknight
Old Timer
Joined
Jul 24, 2002
Messages
266
I have a 4" L.Parahybana that I raised from a very small spider; less than 1/4" when purchased less than a year ago. It is fairly calm, can be handled if you mutually come to a agreement.

But it is a PIG..........Almost never turns down a meal; eats anything and everything except for a short time before and after the moult, of course. I was very surprised how agile it was as a micro-baby, it just yanked everything down it's hole. Never have seen a small spiderling that was so quick and accurate to kill it's prey:)
 

Arachnopuppy

Arachnodemon
Old Timer
Joined
Jul 22, 2002
Messages
713
My parahybanas won't stop eating. I would feed them stuff that are as big as themselves and their abdomine seem to never get big enough. They will eat everyday. They are active. All three of them keep rearranging their places. They are molting every month now.
 

Vys

Arachnoprince
Old Timer
Joined
Sep 22, 2002
Messages
1,560
Hmm, I shall try to feed her again when I get back to where she's at, on sunday evening. Then, approximately 12 or 13 days will have gone by; should that be enough?
Maybe though, she'll just be kind of mellow, as she's been since moult, more or less permanently. I'll perhaps see.
Anyways, I hope you realize my remark about the coziness of her corner was a sarcastic statement :) It looks like a dry dead graveyard, but the whole tank looks real nice,if I may say so. So nice in fact, that I never found the second crick I released in there together with the first she's eaten since moult :p
Oh, which reminds me : What would be recommended actions to take because of the two burrowed roaches in there? Will they stress poor Potato, or have they probably burrowed deep enough for her not to notice them, if possible? (Pretty much substrate in there)
Nice I'm not the only smart person around, to see the semi-adult ones' obvious resemblance to potatoes :D
 

Vys

Arachnoprince
Old Timer
Joined
Sep 22, 2002
Messages
1,560
Here I bring forth again, a bump with a sight smell of whine and lack of patience? Well..see it as you wish.

To the contents :

I kind of had my hopes up about her appetite today. She sat like a pancake on her web-carpet, as a crick came whizzing by her snout; landing just beside her before scuttling away. No reaction.
So I gently blow on Potato to see if she's dead or something :rolleyes: , to which she answers by practically teleporting to her dear corner.
I shoo the crick into the web-carpet edge in the corner, and it goes paralyzed, while Potato sits half an inch from it, in the corner on the web. After 5 mins of statuesque, someones' monkey patiance dooms it...or? No, because Potato looks scared and huddles even further in the corner, while the crick shouts insults at her and goes hiding in the rhododendron on the other side of the enclosure.
All the while my avic has not sat in her hunter's position or actually been out much from her web at all(and certainly not eaten a thing) since November.
 
Last edited:

blackacidevil

Arachnobaron
Old Timer
Joined
Feb 3, 2003
Messages
315
I've never had a PZB but my advice would be to leave it alone for a couple of days. If it doesn't immediately attack a cricket take it out for the next day or the one after that......the T will definitely not starve to death:)
 

minax

Arachnoknight
Old Timer
Joined
Jul 24, 2002
Messages
266
Hey Vys! I would say the cockroaches would not bother the T. Maybe you could put some food out to lure the roaches out. Holly said she once had a mealworm dig in and her Parahybana felt the ground with it's pedipalps and dug the sucker up!!:D I saw a trench my B.Smithi dug, and I found out that it dug up a stray mealworm that crawled slowly away from it. I would give your T a break from food for a couple of days anyway. It will eat when it's hungry. By the way, what kind of roach is it in the cage? The only type I know to be dangerous to T's are the orange head, Eublaberus Prosticus, especially during a molt.
 
Top