Tarantula Burrows

[JarvyvV]

Tarantulas are amazing architects. My Blue Fang created a burrow that rises up above the substrate with a frame of web covered in dirt as to make a deeper burrow with only digging half as much depth and using the excavated substrate to add on to the top of the structure. Do you guys have any other amazing tarantula burrows that impressed you.

 

[Disquiet]

My one inch T. gigas used excavated material to line his or her system of tube webs as well, but what really impressed me was the creation of a "reverse" trash chute. I always find boluses, especially when the cricket has been taken "inside" for the meal, underneath the opening of the one vertical tube in the system. Pretty cool!

 

[klawfran3]

my .5" A. geniculata burrowed an immense amount in one of its containers, so much that it collapsed on it this morning. i spent a good 30 minutes trying to save it from being smothered.

 

[obtkeeper]

My H. gigas is constructing a burrow right now, and it's webbing together small chunks of coco/vermic and using it's fangs to pick up the webbed mass and move it to the top. An amazing display!

 

[akarikuragi]

My LP sling had a burrow that went all the way around the deli cup it was in, was really cool.

 

[Beary Strange]

My g.rosea sling made an amazing U burrow that is about 5" deep on either side. Now she's bored and burrowing inward. And my m.balfouri have made some interesting burrows as well, made even more so that two are from the same sac and have made very different burrows. Both started out with a thick web mat on the floor and ripping holes in that and burrowing under. One kept the holes through the web up top and made a regular burrow along the side of the enclosure going down at an angle (the third smaller one from a different sac did this as well); the other formed a big turret out of substrate, with the burrow in the center and a tornado shaped webbing seemingly supporting said turret. It's really incredible to look at; I need to get a pic now that I think of it.

 

[Stan Schultz]

Tarantulas are amazing architects. My Blue Fang created a burrow that rises up above the substrate with a frame of web covered in dirt as to make a deeper burrow with only digging half as much depth and using the excavated substrate to add on to the top of the structure. Do you guys have any other amazing tarantula burrows that impressed you.

Our king baboons (Pelenobius muticus) were constantly constructing burrows of multiple entrances, shafts and cross passages. Always, ALWAYS filled their water dishes with dirt. I've never seen any tarantula dig like that!

The dwarf tarantula from southern California and southwestern Arizona, probably Aphonopelma mojave, digs a burrow and constructs a little, fortress-like tower around the entry.

A fully grown, adult female that produced, then ate an eggsac a few months after this photo was taken. She is now alive and well, and living in Peru, Indiana.


The turreted burrow of the female above in the wild. In captivity she constructed the turret for a few months, than abandoned the project entirely. She still lives in a well constructed underground burrow in her cage, however. (Click or right-click the thumbnail to see a larger image.)