wild Honduran tarantulas

[james lewis]

Hey guys, I spent the week on the island of Roatan off the coast of honduras. I was fortunate enough to stumble upon all kinds of wildlife wildlife, including a milk snake and red tailed boa, but the big hit was the T's. The numbers where incredible but naturally I came out with a few questions. Most of the spiders I saw appeared to be young brachypalma albiposium, however I was basing this on the underlying colours of the body and legs, because the famous curly hair seemed to be very light and sometimes non existent. I will try to attach some photos and I'd be interested in hearing some opinions! (The first attached photos is a confirmed female with a legspan of about 3 1/4 inches, the second is an assumed male of roughly the same size)

 

[Exoskeleton Invertebrates]

They don't look like curly hairs to me. I'm interested to know exactly what species they are from the island you found them at.

 

[MrsHaas]

They don't look like curly hairs to me. I'm interested to know exactly what species they are from the island you found them at.

Agreed... They lack the curly hairs that distinguish "curly hair" tarantulas...

 

[micheldied]

Definitely not B. albopilosum. Interested to hear what others think they are.

 

[Haksilence]

lol i actually spent 2 months on that island for a missions trip helping the nice people at the radio tower, and running a youth camp. that island is stunningly beautiful. best part for me was the snorkeling off the coast. top notch

 

[Philth]

Not a curly hair like the others have said. There's a undescribed species from that Island, it actually became available to the hobby a year or two ago. If you google Theraphosinae sp. "Roatan" you'll find some pictures, its likely the same thing that you saw. There's not much info on them though, since they are undescribed and fairly new to the hobby. My photo shows the juvenile coloration. The females are brown like you saw, but the mature males have some nice purples to them. http://tarantulacanada.ca/gallery/T-sp-Honduras-M.jpg



Later, Tom

 

[johnny quango]

I'd second Tom's opinion on it being Theraposinae sp roatan the very 1St line you typed kinda gave me a clue as to what I was gonna see. A wild Brachypelma albopilosum at 3"+ would have been very distinctive from the tarantulas in the pictures you posted they even look different from the hobby version which is said to be a Vagans/albopilosum hybrid, a wild B albopilosum has really thick dense long curly hair a lot longer than the hobby version. I recently saw a wild caught B albopilosum for the first time ever and the difference between the two is staggering they look like 8 legged balls of fluff

 

[james lewis]

Thank you the images you found look nearly identical to what I saw, as I said we saw tons of them. I'm glad to finally get an ID the lack of hair was really bugging me but I saw that some of them under the hair had similar colours to what I saw and I'm not to familiar with the albiposium. If anyone would like more photos I can post them, I also found a small scorpion that I couldn't identify either if you guys want to take a Crack at it. Thank you for all of the posts it's was greatly appreciated! James

 

[james lewis]

Haha Now Tom's got me angry that I couldn't find a mature male!

 

[MrsHaas]

Holy moly those purples are purdy!

 

[Philth]

If anyone would like more photos I can post them,

Any photo's from cool trips like that are always appreciated. I love habitat photo's and pics of animals in nature.

Later, Tom

 

[james lewis]

Well here are some more shots of the T's (bonus jumping spiders)

 

[sjl197]

Thanks for sharing. I've been looking in detail at the tarantulas in Honduras, and currently know of only 1 species on Roatan, and that's it - as Philth shows.

Interesting you now think you didn't find adult males - knowing when or not they're about will help understand their ecology. If you can tell us what months you were there, it's informative data. I was there early september, and adult males were plentiful. I collected a few under permit, and plan to describe the species - it's indeed new to science.

The other photos are very nice, the scorpion looks to be Diplocentrus sp or thereabouts. I'd expect those on Roatan are also an undescribed species - but i didn't find any there, so well done on that find!. The jumping spiders both seem to be Menemerus bivittatus which is a widespread species across the warmer parts of americas often near buildings, first a female then what looks to be an adult male - so you got the adult male of those!

 

[frankinthecity]

found this post on google going to roatan in august, anyone know if there is arboreal species??

 

[paulb27]

Hey guys, I spent the week on the island of Roatan off the coast of honduras. I was fortunate enough to stumble upon all kinds of wildlife wildlife, including a milk snake and red tailed boa, but the big hit was the T's. The numbers where incredible but naturally I came out with a few questions. Most of the spiders I saw appeared to be young brachypalma albiposium, however I was basing this on the underlying colours of the body and legs, because the famous curly hair seemed to be very light and sometimes non existent. I will try to attach some photos and I'd be interested in hearing some opinions! (The first attached photos is a confirmed female with a legspan of about 3 1/4 inches, the second is an assumed male of roughly the same size)

I agree they don’t appear to be curly hairs

 

[MrGhostMantis]

I agree they don’t appear to be curly hairs

This thread is from 2015.