Probably Just a G. rosea, but...

pitbulllady

pitbulllady

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I'm not really sure. I've been keeping an eye on it in a local pet shop(well, about 40 minutes from here, which is about as "local" as things get, where I live)for a couple of weeks. It was labeled as a "Chilean Flame" tarantula, which I know is a common name sometimes used in the pet trade for G. rosea, but it stands out as different in several respects. One is the color; I have never seen a G. rosea this orangy before. Two, it kicks hairs like crazy, every bit as bad as my B. boehmei ever thought about, and has the honor(along with a B. albopilosum)of being the only tarantulas ever to make me itch at all! I've never seen a G. rosea kick hairs, though I did have a G. pulchra immature female that would. Most Rosehairs would rather rear up and give at least a half-hearted threat display than kick. It also has stiped spinnerettes, and all four of my G. roseas have solid-colored, dark brown or actually blackish spinnerettes. I thought it might be a Paraphysa scrofa, but I'm not convinced of that, either. Regardless, it's a really pretty spider, though rather small, only about 3 inches in diameter, and I talked the pet shop clerk down to ten bucks for it, provided that I got it out of its enclosure and into the deli cup myself, since she was terrified of it! She swore it was "very aggressive" and couldn't believe I actually picked it up!






pitbulllady
 
surena

surena

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If you decide to buy it, please post a picture as I am curious to see if it realy is a G. rosea.
 
Thoth

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I'm with Surena on this that doesn't look like an rosea I've seen.

Maybe a PZB (aka pink zebra beauty, Eupalaestrus campestratus), then again I suck at IDing so I might be wrong.
 
pitbulllady

pitbulllady

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Nope, I know it's not an Eupaulaestrus campestratus; I've got one of those that was captive-bred by Scott Beamis, and she's an adult. She does not have a mirror patch at all, and the rear legs on that species are very thickened, unlike this one. Her stripes are also more distinctive, and her coloring is not at all orangy like this spider's. I'm tempted to go with some other species of Grammostola, but which one? I know it's not G. aureostriata-got one of those, too, a huge girl, as well as a G. pulchra(can't be one of those, duh), but I honestly haven't seen any other Grammostola species "in person", except for 'slings that weren't even showing color yet. I agree, though, some features about this one don't quite "add up" for G. rosea, like the hair-kicking and the striped spinnerettes.
I also failed to mention in this thread that this spider is a VERY prolific webber, more so than my Green-Bottle Blue, and those are notorious webbers! The enclosure in the pet shop was nearly 2/3 covered in webbing in between the first time I saw this spider, which was about 2 weeks ago, and today, when I broke down and bought it. This thing is busy right now, webbing up its new enclosure. I have never seen any Grammostola web like this, especially not a G. rosea. The only time mine do any noticeable webbing is when making a moulting mat, and it's limited to part of the floor of the enclosure. This spider webs up all over the sides and on any objects in the enclosure, having almost totally covered a fake plant that the pet shop put in there.

pitbulllady
 
Scott C.

Scott C.

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I won't waste your time with a guess, but I will say for 10 bucks, that T would be mine in a heartbeat. Nice find, and good luck with the id thing.
 
Camberwell

Camberwell

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Could it not just be a red color form chilly rose?

its got chilly like stripes on the knees?
 
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pitbulllady

pitbulllady

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Camberwell said:
Could it not just be a red color form chilly rose?
Click to expand...
Still, why would it make so much webbing, and kick hairs(and I mean REALLY kick, right up there with my Brachypelma boehmei, who is the King of Hair-Kickers)? I cannot rule out a color phase of a Chilean Rosehair, but I've got four of those(who doesn't have at least one?)and none have ever kicked hairs, don't web much at all, and have solid-colored spinnerettes. I even used a ball-point pen to pull down the spinnerettes on my largest female G. rosea, to get a better look, and got the pen slapped out of my hand for my troubles, but no kicking. If you so much as look hard at this new spider, you'll get showered with urticating hairs. My L. parahybana isn't even that bad! My hands itched for nearly half-an-hour after picking it up and putting it in a deli cup to transport home, and this is only the second time I've reacted to urticating hairs like that(the first being from a B. albopilosum, but my hands were wet with sweat from driving 4 hours with no AC in my car). I've had a VERY mild(less than 10 minutes)reaction to handling a freshly-moulted G. rosea exuvium, but again, I'd just washed dishes, and my hands were still damp, and even pine straw or hay will do that to me if I mess with it with wet hands. It could be just a G. rosea with abberant behavior, I just don't know.

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Crunchie

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looks like a chile rose inneed of a moult, my one looked the same until it moulted.



another Chile rose


You can't go by the rule of thumb all the time, there is always an exception to the rule. The second Chile I've posted pictures of used to do handstands trying to kick hairs at us. The first one used to put down a lot of webbing as well.
 
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pitbulllady

pitbulllady

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becca81 said:
I agree that it could be G. rosea, but there does seem to be something that just isn't right...

It almost reminds me a tiny bit of what is considered to be the *real* G. cala, but don't take that as any type of ID, it's just an observation/guess.
http://www.birdspiders.com/archive/15B0051CKD0B7KAEC2K14EC519B3DA0C587.html

Whatever it may be, it was a good deal. :)
Click to expand...
Yeah, I'm sorta leaning towards that notion, too. If it weren't for Rick West, I probably would simply write off "Grammostola cala" as just another synonym for Grammostola rosea, but there IS apparently a difference. This spider DOES look an awful lot like the one on his website, and from what I've read, the real G. cala is a much more skittish and nervous beastie than G. rosea, and I've certainly found this to be true of my new T. I thought it was in pre-moult, but it voraciously downed two crickets I threw in with it tonight, so I must have thought wrong! I still think it's a Gram of some sort, but I'm not convinced of it being G. rosea.

pitbulllady
 
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