Tarantulas.... do you own one?

[emerald_taipan]

I went to a site near broken hill in nsw and found some selenocosmia sterlingi. they live in fairlily deep holes with a chamber at the bottom. I dug one up to have a look at it, but the soil was very hard, it took ages.
I found a better way of getting them out of their burrows. you dig the shovel into the soil on an angle about 15cm deep, not crossing through the spider burrow, then poor water down the burrow and the spider will run up to the entrance but not come out, so tthen you dig the shovel in the rest of the way and lift the soil and entrance of burrow out. unfortunately this wrecks the burrow and I do not recommend digging up or worse, poaching tarantulas in from wild.
I wouldn't be surprised if stirlingi eat birds if they had the opportunity. I found the remains of some kind of small mammal in a burrow. It was a leg of some sort and seemed surprisingly large for a spider to be eating.

 

[bylo]

Anyone here know how to sex them and how old they need to be to be sexed?

this can depend on many factors including availability of food etc ,you can find down loadable PDF on the AIF which will help with sexing your Spiders
its quite easy to sex your spider once it has reached a leg span of 70 mm or more by eye a scope is usually needed if the spider is any smaller

cheers

Greg

 

[kcaj_123]

Who told you that????

http://thedailylink.com/australiantarantulas/species/plumipes.html

I wouldn'y be surprised at all if many, many more accounts were found from many, many more species. Tarantulas will eat anything they can, young birds are not safe.

 

[hornet]

Males are short lives after maturity which can range from 11months up to 6-7years. After maturity males normally live less than a year but some species can make it 2 years as mature males. Females live alot longer, anywhere from probably 10 years for C. tropix to over 20 for most of our larger species. Slow growing arid species may live over 30years. Sexing is easy once the spider reaches about 50-60mm. Need pics to know what i mean but your looking for a cresent shapped patch of hairs above the epigastric furrow which indicates a male. When mature its easy for even the novice, males are very leggy, small abdomen, generally quite different in color to females and on the palps the males have "boxing gloves" which are used to trasfer the sperm packet from male to female. I'd put some pics up to make it easyer but currently have no internet access at home. Hope i was some sort of help.

 

[PhilK]

I have 9. 7 of which are quite small. Got another 3 coming.

I like their behaviour and their looks and feeding response. Just remember, a lot of the time what you're getting is a pet hole. They aren't the most active of pets.

I get all mine from www.thegreenscorpion.com.au and couldn't be happier with them. Bylo from this site runs that shop. Join the Australian Invertebrate Forum too, lots of very good knowledge on that site.

Greg, love that hirsutus.. Are they for sale?

 

[Harmony67]

Thought I would throw on a pic that was taken right before the White Knee molted, which he has done twice in two months as they grow rather quickly...