Phlogius sp. "aussie goliath"?

[jbm150]

Its somewhat off topic but I figured I'd bump this old thread instead of creating a new one.

My Aussie goliath just molted to about 5" or so and has seeminly matured (palps now look swollen). He grew fast, from 2" in January when I got him to being mature now.

For those in the know, roughly how long could I expect him to live from this point?

 

[syndicate]

In my experience with the Aussie T's so far I've noticed the males can live for a long time!!I had a mature male crassipes here last around 2 years.I believe Steve Nunn also mentioned that he believes males of some of the Aussie tarantulas will mate with females for more than one season in the wild.
Good luck finding a female for your male!I only got one female out of 5 slings but she is not even close to be breeding size.trying to speed her growth up now!
-Chris

 

[jbm150]

In my experience with the Aussie T's so far I've noticed the males can live for a long time!!I had a mature male crassipes here last around 2 years.I believe Steve Nunn also mentioned that he believes males of some of the Aussie tarantulas will mate with females for more than one season in the wild.
Good luck finding a female for your male!I only got one female out of 5 slings but she is not even close to be breeding size.trying to speed her growth up now!
-Chris

Thanks Chris, good info indeed. Thats good to hear, I was a little worried that I'd have to find a taker in the next month or so. At least I have time. We definitely need more of these in the hobby....and more importantly, I need more of these in my collection

 

[Guesswhof96]

Hey guys! I've been wanting one of these for an ickle while now. They truly are awesome, but like most aussie T's, don't get past the 16-18cm mark. It's not terribly uncommon to see someone in Aus with an 18cm Tarantula, but it's not common either I've only seen about 7-9. To my recollection the largest Tarantula in the hobby is 23cm and it's some sorta phlogius - not goliath, I forget what the thread said. Keep them nice and humid, I've always been taught all aussie T's should have high humidity all the time no matter what species, pleanty of water, crinkled abdomens are what you see in petstores alot here and that's what usually kills petstore ones

Enjoy your goliaths

 

[Steve Nunn]

Hi,
I'm the one with the monster S/P.crassipes, with a legspan over 22cm, easily. BUT, I have a young Goliath female that is the same size and is young, she will no doubt exceed the big crassipes. The Aussie Goliath is without doubt the largest species from Australia. Raven showed me one in the QM that was HUGE, like Acanthoscuria/Xenesthis huge. The specimen was over 100 years old and the only one known, we found them back in the early 2000's again, and they breed easily, but the males vary in size, so much so it's crazy, I've seen mature males so small, like legspans of 5-6cm.....amazing...both will eventually be put inot the genus Phlogius, once Raven revalidates the group properly.

Steve

 

[jim777]

I was under the impression it was terribly difficult to get Australian T's outside of Australia? Are there P. rubiseta floating around in the US?

I've also heard the Phlogius PQ113 species is a lot of fun as well, as in 'keep the lid locked'?

 

[zonbonzovi]

I was under the impression it was terribly difficult to get Australian T's outside of Australia? Are there P. rubiseta floating around in the US?

I've also heard the Phlogius PQ113 species is a lot of fun as well, as in 'keep the lid locked'?

You can thank the man above your post for breeding multiple generations and exporting them

Haven't seen P. rubiseta around here before? And, PQ113 is a joy to keep(for me at least)- great tunnelers and reasonably fast growers.

 

[Steve Nunn]

I was under the impression it was terribly difficult to get Australian T's outside of Australia? Are there P. rubiseta floating around in the US? I've also heard the Phlogius PQ113 species is a lot of fun as well, as in 'keep the lid locked'?

They are terribly difficult to get outside of Australia I legally exported to Japan, the US twice, Canada once or twice, Germany, the UK and Denmark (I think that's it). Because the demand overseas could not match the costs of maintaining those permits (very expensive, about 5 permits and licences required, as well as a federal approved breeding facility), I will no longer be exporting any Australian tarantulas, so what you guys have over there will be it. I'm sure some still get smuggled, as I've seen both funnel-webs and mouse spiders in overseas collections........but rubiseta has never been exported by myself, although Stent's Birdspider (another Phlogius species) is most likely synonymous with rubiseta (rubiseta has more red hairs, but that's about the only difference).

On a side note, I would think if CITES wish to act upon their rather strange laws surrounding Brachypelma and Poecilotheria, they should impliment an international breeding standard, whereby breeders can apply and have approved operations for these genera. I know with Brachypelma, gettting approval would be almost impossible, as very few have ever actually bred some of the slower growing species (such as B.smithi). Brachypelma still get smuggled (largely gravid females), and this is the obvious origin of most of those species (although every commercial seller will argue otherwise). Poecilotheria on the other hand seem fairly easy to breed from what I've read and understand about them, they should be no problem.

Steve

 

[jbm150]

That's really too bad, they're way too underrated. I hope the breeders here can sustain the species we have....

 

[Steve Nunn]

It is a shame, but the combination of licencing and international demand just didn't meet up. I had lots of requests for adults by overseas buyers, but the reality is I (nor could anyone else) could not afford to grow tarantulas to adult stage for wholesale purposes, it's not just difficult, it's impossible (and if anyone states they commerically sells "captive bred" adults of any species, there is only two real ways of them obtaining those spiders, through hobbyists who privately sell off one or two here and there, or via illegal poaching (or legal wild collection), trust me if anyone tells you otherwise, they are flat out wrong--no question of it). I did send very few adults (you could count the total with your fingers), and I did manage to send some larger juveniles, but 99.5% of everything that went overseas were 2nd instar spiderlings. The very few adults that did go out were not sent just for the sake of it either, they went because they all went to friends who'd emailed me personally in special requests, it took me MANY years to grow some of those species, and after keeping specimens for that long, it's hard to see them go out the door at ANY price.

I should add some more to the above mentioning of adult stock for sale by commercial sellers, I don't accuse anyone of them for selling wild caught adults under the guise of being captive bred to maturity, as I'd also be certain many big sellers obtain adults from perhaps hundreds of individual enthusiasts that are legit CB raised stock. But if any commercial sellers have vast quantities of certain adult stock, I'd give serious question as to it's origins. I know what it takes to raise captive stock to maturity, the cost by far exceeds the sale price, making it a completely unviable task. I would think that area about as grey as the so-called "captive bred" stock of many collectors, who just also happen to collect same said stock from the wild, at, coincidently, the same time as all adult females in any given population are in pre-lay condition. Sorry for the rant