T colonies: Theraphosid Park

[Stylopidae]

How do you think tarantulas ended up on islands in the first place?

Søren

Although tarantulas can't swin, drifting accidents have been known to occurr. A tarantula builds it's burrow in a rotten log that's then blown out to sea where it then floats to another island/continent. This has been known to happen with mice and rats, as well as iguanas and also may be South America has it's own Scolopendra subspinpes subspecies.

A lot of the life on galapogos is believed to have been introduced by rafting accidents.

OK, folks...back to the original topic

What would be the point of this?

 

[cacoseraph]

i would be concerned about spreading pet trade "diseases" to the wild


also, @chesh: all the spiderlings i've dropped into water have been able to locomote just fine. i guess it would depend on defintion of "swim"... but they use a combo of surface tension and bouyancy to move across the top of the water

 

[Talkenlate04]

i would be concerned about spreading pet trade "diseases" to the wild

What would you say are pet trade "diseases"
And are you sure the things you are about to list don't happen in the wild?

 

[cacoseraph]

What would you say are pet trade "diseases"
And are you sure the things you are about to list don't happen in the wild?

parasites, mites, ticks, nematodes, flies, etc

sure, those things happen in the wild. but african pets get african diseases and asian pets get asian diseases and etc. when an african affliction is unleashed on USA pet trade bugs it could be a slaughter as the USA fellows haven't co-evolved with whatever the affliction in q is.

the fact is we know frog all about pet afflictions and a LOT of pet bugs die every year. sure 99% could be user error... but it's that remainder that i'm worried about! who knows... african t's could rock a ph a point or two lower than USA taras, which keeps some kind of micro gut parasite in check... but it would ravage USA taras. who knows... not me, not anyone as far as i know


i'm all for playing god, don't get me wrong. but let us stick to stem cells or something we know a tiny bit more about

 

[Stylopidae]

i would be concerned about spreading pet trade "diseases" to the wild


also, @chesh: all the spiderlings i've dropped into water have been able to locomote just fine. i guess it would depend on defintion of "swim"... but they use a combo of surface tension and bouyancy to move across the top of the water

Remember we're talking a distance of hundreds or thousands of miles and not just across a bathtub. A spider would need some sort of shelter to protect it from dehydration and predation.

Normally, animals in rafting incidents are shuttled from place to place by some sort of debris that would supply that shelter.

In my S. subspinpes fulgrans example, I find it statistically impossible that the centipede would get from Asia to anywhere else without encountering some oceanic acquatic predator.

I'm not saying they aren't physically capable of swimming that far, but I find it doubtful that a tarantula could survive in direct sunlight on a reflective surface (created by water that would be toxic to the animal in question) long enough to cross a body of water larger than a few miles.

I'm just wondering why you wouldn't buy up large tracts of land and restore them to re-populate the native species.

 

[cacoseraph]

*ahem* i forgot it was on a distant island. lost the forest, for the trees while i was at it. my bad.

I'm just wondering why you wouldn't buy up large tracts of land and restore them to re-populate the native species.

i fully would love to, if i can ever do it safely enough not to worry. i wrestle with the thought of distributing some of the local babies i produce to new local areas when they are big enough. but i just can't justify the risk in my particular situation right now, in a non-distant-island scenario. which is what i thought we were talking about when i made the long posts. heh.

 

[Stylopidae]

i fully would love to, if i can ever do it safely enough not to worry. i wrestle with the thought of distributing some of the local babies i produce to new local areas when they are big enough. but i just can't justify the risk in my particular situation right now, in a non-distant-island scenario. which is what i thought we were talking about when i made the long posts. heh.

That's what I'm saying...

...why buy entire islands when all you have to do is buy disused farmland in South America (or wherever) and leave it be for awhile.

Buying islands is an uneeded expense and is just complicating the whole thing.

 

[cacoseraph]

That's what I'm saying...

...why buy entire islands when all you have to do is buy disused farmland in South America (or wherever) and leave it be for awhile.

Buying islands is an uneeded expense and is just complicating the whole thing.

well, i like the island idea for making colonies of whatever species you want.

but for conservation efforts that are, you know, really possible donating cash to buy up endangered habitat is probably the way to go