what do you make of this...?

[Delailah]

Hi all,

Quick question. While I was cleaning the house yesterday, I put a lit candle on the same shelf as my b. smithii to get it out of the way so I could dust.

While my back was turned, she came out of her hide and plastered herself on the wall closest to the flame. When I moved the candle to the other side of her KK, she moved too. So for fun, I moved it several times to see what she would do.

Each time she moved and crawled up the side of her enclosure to be close to the burning candle. :? When I blew out the candle, she eventually went back in her hide.

I didn't think T's were into romance... Anyone else had this happen?

 

[chris 71]

I've had them do the same thing with a hot cup of coffee I guess there basking in the heat. chris..

 

[Moltar]

I observed the same behavior from my smithi when i had her tank right next to 2 computers. At the time i wondered if it was the heat or the electrical field. I guess it was the heat.

 

[Delailah]

I'm wondering why she would want heat though... it's always around 78 to 80 in the room she's in (that's fahrenheit). Do I need to keep her warmer?

I was half considering she may be attracted to the shine of the flame.

Maybe T's are like ostriches, and attracted to shiny objects.

 

[Talkenlate04]

It's the heat. They have been seen in the wild at the tops of their burrows in the early morning hours soaking up the rays, then retreating into the burrow when the sun gets to hot. The sun warms up my east facing window in my T room first thing in the morning, and sometimes ill walk in there and 3/4ths of my collection are all against the side of their homes that is closest to the window.

 

[Delailah]

... sometimes ill walk in there and 3/4ths of my collection are all against the side of their homes that is closest to the window.

Very cool, although I still am concerned I'm not keeping her warm enough.

Also, should she be in a location where she can get sunlight? I had always thought t's were happy in a darker location.

 

[Talkenlate04]

No sunlight. Sunlight will kill her in a tank setup. As long as you are not wearing a fur coat in your house then the temps are fine. Smithi's will handle and seem to like temps in the high 70's and low 80's but it's not really needed unless you are trying to breed them.

 

[dukegarda]

Direct sunlight is bad, especially if the T cannot get away from it. A huge problem with trying to do that in an enclosure is, ventilation. The sun will heat up the air over and over if the ventilation is poor, steam cooking your favorite pet. If you have good ventilation (You probably should with a smithi, it is after all a desert species), I don't see how a 15 minute interval of sunlight would hurt for as long as the T can hide from the rays if it so wishes.

After all, we are trying to keep our fuzzy friends happy as can be by replicating their natural environment, while making sure they are SAFE.

 

[Delailah]

My ventilation is great, and she's fat and sassy - makes me feel like I'm doing something right.

I just had a dumb thought, though. If it's a desert species, and terrestrial, wouldn't it be relatively used to sunlight? I suppose in the desert there's good ventilation, they may burrow to avoid direct rays, or hang out under shrubs or cactus...

 

[dukegarda]

It's impossible, well not impossible, but REALLY hard to replicate natural conditions inside a glass tank. I honestly wouldn't worry about the sunlight thing too much.

 

[Talkenlate04]

I just had a dumb thought, though. If it's a desert species, and terrestrial, wouldn't it be relatively used to sunlight? I suppose in the desert there's good ventilation, they may burrow to avoid direct rays, or hang out under shrubs or cactus...

In the wild as I mentioned you may see them in the early morning hours, but as soon as it heats up they moving into their burrows out of the sun.

What's different about sunlight in your tank setup is the sun passes through the glass or plastic and magnifies it, heats up the whole tank faster then you would think, and could cook your T.

 

[spid142]

Ts do regulate their temp, by moving up or down to the temp that suits them, so its a normal behavior. I used to have a heat-mat on the side of my rosie's tank, and she would sit on that glass over it for a while, then move off back to her hide. Really, tho, as long as you avoid direct sunlight, they can regulate themselves as to temps. If you are comfortable, so are Ts.

 

[Moltar]

The Lesson

What's different about sunlight in your tank setup is the sun passes through the glass or plastic and magnifies it, heats up the whole tank faster then you would think, and could cook your T.

To illustrate this point, i'm going to tell a story.

I was at a reptile show a couple of weeks ago. The table i wnted to check out that had the most T's also sold some reptiles. When i walked up to the table there was a heated (pardon the pun) discussion between the father of this young teenager and the proprietor of the booth. It seems that earlier that day they had bought a snake (some green thing that wasn't a boa or python) brought it home and set it in the window to get some sun. The snake was in a 10" round sort of deli container type enclosure they had purchased it in. It seems that within no more than 2 hours it had heated up enough to kill the snake.

To his credit, the owner of the booth did a nice job of telling the guy he was a dumb-ass for putting the snake directly in the sun without actually SAYING he was a dumb-ass. Very diplomatic of him. He even offered another reptile as an exchange for the unfortunate snake even though he wasn't responsible for the death. The father and son team still left with a pet AND they learned something. The lesson? Don't put your tanked pets in the sun. It's just like a car in the hot sun with all the windows closed.

 

[Alice]

for the heat loving species, i have a few weak lamps in my t-shelf. they are on during daytime and help simulate a day-night cicle as well as a yearly cicle. while those are not really necessary, they do not cost much and especially brachypelma and grammostola species as well as lasiodora seem very fond of a 'sunbath'. my big lasiodora girl gets under the lamp as soon as it's on an warms herself up several hours a day.
so if your t enjoys the heat, you could always buy one of those low-energy-lamps used for reading. they do not produce too much heat and are not expensive.

 

[Stylopidae]

My ventilation is great, and she's fat and sassy - makes me feel like I'm doing something right.

I just had a dumb thought, though. If it's a desert species, and terrestrial, wouldn't it be relatively used to sunlight? I suppose in the desert there's good ventilation, they may burrow to avoid direct rays, or hang out under shrubs or cactus...

In the wild, tarantulas live in deep burrows. Even though the temperature may be in excess of 100* outside, the temperatures in their burrows is probably closer to room temperature than you may think.

Room temperature is fine for most tarantulas. Temperatures in my apartment can exceed 80 degrees at times (air conditioning sucks), but I wouldn't reccomend exposing tarantulas to those temperatures on a daily basis.

There are some species of tarantula I can't keep (poecilotheria subfusca, for example) because my apartment is too hot.

If you think your spider is doing fine...then your spider is doing fine and there is no need for you to change anything.