Why are Phoneutria and atrax so taboo?

[Crotalus]

The descriptions and subsequent photos I've seen of Phoneutria species are what make me think that's what I had. Pale brown, leggy, smooth-looking body. Incredibly aggressive and fast.

I didn't have the internet at the time that I had that specimen in my care (this was almost a decade ago), but the pictures posted on here recently of the person handling the Phoneutria look a heck of a lot like the spider I had.

That description goes for alot of ctenids and they got a similar body shape etc, but if it showed a defense behaviour with first two legpairs and body erect while slowly moving from side to side then its atleast a Phoneutria ssp. You can also can check the pedipals for a dense comb of hair which the other lacks.

/Lelle

 

[galeogirl]

I could be wrong, it's hard to know without the specimen still around to examine and compare. Whatever it was, it was a great spider that I enjoyed immensely when I had it.

It did rock back and forth when it would threaten, but I didn't bother to do a leg count, I was still fairly new to spiders at the time.