Pics galore for your viewing pleasure! (56k warning)

[LCDXX]

Would not a tarantula eat a frog or toad in the wild? Cannot a toad eat a wasp? Birds eat tarantulas and scorpions all the same. There's a difference between having poison injected or otherwise contacting sensitive membranes and actually digesting it. The same principle applies to tarantula eating another tarantula - though the venom is just as dangerous from a bite via another tarantula (of the same species, even), a T can still consume it.

Crickets, though healthy and certainly sufficient as a core diet, don't offer a variety of nutrients. Pinky mice are okay, but not readily available in my area. Cicadas, or locusts depending on your geographic location, are great to watch but ultimate aren't that fulfilling. Fish are great, but messy. Toads are completely harmless, yet they put up a nice struggle and their size can make for a tarantula buffet.

No, I have no worries, especially when it comes to Fowler's toads... I can understand that a poison dart frog, or maybe some of the other more extreme amphibious critters out there could be potentially fatal to a T, but let us not forget that some things aren't as potent - just like Ts and scorps.

LCDXX

 

[Wade]

The difference is that with true toads (Bufo), the toxin is a true poison, i.e. that it's most dangerous when ingested. In toads, the poison is contained in the parotoid glands, two large swellings behind the toad's eyes. This toxin is what has made the marine toad (Bufo marinus) such a pest when it was introduced to Australia. Native predators have no defense against the toxin in this SA species, so many rare lizards, snakes, birds and marsupials have died trying to consume them.

I am not aware, however, of any reports of invertebrates having problems with toad toxins. Apparently, they don't

Wade

 

[Mister Internet]

Originally posted by LCDXX
Pinky mice are okay, but not readily available in my area.

You could have a never-ending supply of free pinkie mice for about $5 worth of adult mice.

That being said, those were some AWESOME pics....

 

[krucz36]

i think everyone who didn't have a twinge of recognition when he was doing his play-by-play is a big fibber. also, props for starting a thread and warning people who may not have a fast connection (suckers) to the internet. WAY better than just randomly posting in different threads slightly related to the pics. well done!

as far as fish go, i've given my T's feeder goldfish before, quite surreal. I was thinking about various chemicals they use in mass-farming those fish though. is there any danger? As far as I know, there's none, but that's not a scientific thing...none of the T's I fed fish to are dead (this was over two years ago). I feed my T's about anything that gets in my way, frankly.

 

[Wade]

I've heard others express concerns over the chemicals used with fish, but I don't think anybody actually knows if it's really harmful or not.

I think for the most part it's just stress coat (aquarium product) used to keep the fish healthy during the stressful transport and cowded conditions. Anyone who's concerned can set the fish up in a untreated aquarium for a few days prior to feeding, which should clean 'em out.

Wade

 

[LCDXX]

Originally posted by krucz36
i I feed my T's about anything that gets in my way, frankly.

Amen. I mean, come on, you have to have some common sense with it, but Ts are insane predators and they WILL eat anything they can justify taking down.

Ironically, I read a scientific article a few months back about a research study done with frogs and toads and apparently they are instinctively programmed just the same - that is to say, they will attempt to put anything they possibly can inside their mouth in hopes of digesting it for food. 4 years ago I stumbled across a bullfrog that had choked on a fully-grown King Fisher (common bird to Indiana) - both creatures died of suffocation. Anyway, this article was pretty much stating that if frogs were the size of human beings, they'd even try to eat a horse, or something similar in size.

But anyway, for all of ye who pondered whether or not toads were safe feeders, I can tell you that A. seemani and G. rosea can handle Fowler's toads without any issues - and according to this Field Guide, Fowler's are pretty much EVERYWHERE in the North American continent. I won't vouch for any other species combinations, though I do have a little toad pouncing about my A. avic's cage at the moment, though the avic doesn't seem interested... yet.

LCDXX

 

[krucz36]

You've got a point.

Is there a name for that kind of predator, one that has almost no requirements for what it will eat other than simply being able to get its mouth around it? I've seen toads choking to death on other, equally-sized toads. I've definitely seen T's eat enormous prey, and I think the ultimate expression of this is the centipede. Those things are amazingly voracious.

 

[Code Monkey]

No, the ultimate expression is the Pacman frog. A gigantic mouth with just enough body to house a stomach and just enough legs to move it about, barely. No room left for the brain unfortunately. The one I had would eat anything that it thought was moving. In the course of its life in addition to the actual prey it ate a bottle cap and a 6-sided die that were knocked into the tank accidentally. It also routinely tried to eat the fish net I used to clean its tank with. It would even occasionally try to eat me.

 

[krucz36]

the gf got me a pac man frog, i named him orson due to the uncanny resemblance, and he...uh...croaked.

they have hilarious little frog-butts though. i can just picture you with a determined little frog hanging off the tip of your finger, slowly making its way up....

a pal had a pac man frog that was about 6 or seven inches across...i still remember him putting a mouse in there, i *blinked* and the mouse was gone. of couse, he probably could have put in a trout with that beast.

 

[Ultimate Instar]

I had a pacman frog several years ago. It was female but made a huge racket by rubbing her butt against the plastic cage in the middle of the night. SQUEEEEEK,SQUEEEEEK, at about two in the morning. O.K., sorry for getting off-topic.

Karen N.

 

[deifiler]

Originally posted by LCDXX
Would not a tarantula eat a frog or toad in the wild?

That arguement is plain retarded... The one in your posession you've paid good money for. Now the one in the wild, that you have never seen, which eats a frog, may or may not die as a result of doing so. If it does die, I havn't lost any money nor do I feel stupid, infact I don't even know if it the last spider to eata frog in the wild did die.

Now if I fed my spider a frog, and my spider then died... That's different.

"In the the wild" Gah!

 

[LCDXX]

Originally posted by deifiler
That arguement is plain retarded... "In the the wild" Gah!

I don't understand how that is "retarded"? Can someone else clarify that for me?

I'm sorry, I purchased my collection out of sheer curiousity and respect (something that Ts are lacking) for these creatures - to observe them and satiate my understanding for that which can't be truly "understood". I don't consider them equitable property or assets - that I'm going to raise and maintain simply because I'm financially obligated to do so.

For example:

I bought an female OBT a couple of months ago - about 3"... she molted about 3 weeks later and died post-molt. No explanation, no signs of stress, environment was the exact same as my male who's been in my keeping for sometime now... something just didn't set right after the molt as far as I can tell. Was I really upset by the $25 dollars lost on the T? Nope, didn't cross my mind - I was too busy feeling bad that there wasn't anything I could do for the poor gal. But frankly, Ts in my possession seem to die more often without toads in their bellies, than with them.

Now would not a tarantula die post-molt in the wild?

LCDXX

 

[deifiler]

You've misinterpretated my post...

I said the arguement of using "in the wild" as a retalliation is moronic. In the wild the spiders live a different life. In the plastic/glass tank you keep them in, you control practically everything for them, as such, you can't compare some actions within your care as being 'normal' as that of wild behaviour...

The money was a way to distinguish between why the arguement was retarded, not that losing money or the actual behaviour "in the wild" is incorrect. Fair enough they will feast on such amphibious wonders in the wild, but in captive care a lot of keepers arn't willing to take the chance. Is a wild rainforest frog different to one that co-exists in human infested areas? Pesticides etc, perhaps they arn't present "in the wild". Perhaps "in the wild" the frogs are specially washed and cleaned of any nasties that could damage the spider, but I've never seen a frog-washer in my back yard:?

Every tarantula that makes it past the first moult technically dies "post-moult"

Regarding this, do you remove crickets from your spiders tank when the spider is in 'pre-moult'? If so, why? No one removes them in the wild...

 

[krucz36]

i think you may have overreacted a little bit to the "in the wild" comment. it doesn't seem that he was saying he keeps his tarantulas exactly as teh y would exist in nature. i think he was just speculating that a wild tarantula might eat a frog. thus, it would be okay for it to consume it. not because he was retarded. that's a pretty heavy insult to lob on someone over one word, and idle speculation at that.

and what exactly was he "retaliating" against? there was no demand put up, it was merely the thought process used in feeding what he deemed harmless prey to his T's.

again, i think you're over-reacting

 

[Code Monkey]

The "in the wild" retort is only off if someone is claiming they are genuinely replicating something natural in vitro. You can say, "I choose to do this in captivity because it's something that happens to Ts in the wild" and there is nothing moronic about it. On the other hand, if you try to say that a behavior you see in your captive in a platic box Ts is "just like what happens in the wild" that is moronic. But that's not what happened here.

His initial risking of the Ts by feeding them a Bufo toad could be said to be less than bright since there was no way to know if it would affect them, but since it hasn't, I think you're blowing things out of proportion, Defiler.

 

[deifiler]

It wasn't an insult, and I didn't call him/her retarded, I called the statement retarded. Yer maybe it is over-reacting a bit


Someone asked if feeding frogs is fine, not do they eat them in the wild. I have nothing against feeding wild caught items to spiders, and I definately won't preach my views for/against it. Infact, it doesn't even seem that big of a deal to me. I won't be feeding live WC prey, however, primarily incase the food item injures the spider, be it physically or chemically.

Too many people revert back to "in the wild they do this!" Which most already know or at least assume will happen anyway. There's a vast difference between a wild spider eating a wild frog, to a captive one eating a frog you've found in your garden though

I have no beef with any of this by the way, I think it looks pretty rad seeing a frog corpse attached to a spider

 

[LCDXX]

Hehehheheh - it is pretty damn cool

LCDXX

 

[MizM]

I have THOUSANDS of little 2" frogs in the "back field" behind my house! I never even thought of feeding them to my kids! The toads are a different story, they are all 4"-7" and vewwy vewwy fat! I have a little colony in my front yard, I built them a little pool with rocks over it!

But, I am SURE they would turn the tables on the T!!

 

[caligulathegod]

"Hello my baby, hello my honey. Hello my ragtime gal..."

 

[kellygirl]

Good move, caligula. This thread needed a little cool-down.

-Kelly