Big Hairy Spiders

[summer_jackel]

If you aren't sick of posts from me yet, here are a couple of photos of my pet tarantulas. Cleaning Chanterelle's box gave me a rare unimpeded look at her.



Little orange bitey thing says, "I am hiding. Please don't eat me. I'd taste terrible and might attempt to bite on the way down, but I know when I'm outweighed, and if you don't try to eat me I won't try to bite you. Deal?"


She is such a pretty little thing.




I am very small and am trying to be a lot smaller. There is no bright orange spider here!


Josephine is not difficult to photograph at all; she often comes towards me if she senses that I'm in the room. My fuzzy kiwi fruit with legs (ok, perhaps I could stand to feed her a tiny bit less) is an ideal large hairy house-spider.

Comments

[stoda.livejournal.com]

No spiders there, nope, just a bright orange ... uhm... clump of twigs? Maybe a nut? Totally not a spider, though. Nope.

And for sure absolutely not for eatings.

[summer-jackel.livejournal.com]

Nope, nothing even remotely like a spider here.

[raveness-d.livejournal.com]

Gorgeous babies.

[summer-jackel.livejournal.com]

Thank you!

[walks-far.livejournal.com]

Can you find them mates so you can have lots more?

[summer-jackel.livejournal.com]

That is an interesting question! I do have strong beliefs around the necessity of breeding these animals in captivity, especially since so many of them are still taken from the wild. Breeding tarantulas is tricky, however, and I feel that a necessary first step is successfully rearing spiderlings who someone else has produced to adulthood. I did have a .5 pink toe spiderling, but she didn't make it---possibly because that species is a bit trickier to keep happy than what I have now and possibly because many spiderlings of any species, even in the best conditions, simply don't survive.

I'm thinking of taking it up again, though. It is possible, and I even found a reasonable description of how to do it (http://www.care-sheet.com/index/Tarantula/Breeding). There are some locally available CB rose haired and chaco golden-kneed spiderlings (http://www.kenthebugguy.com/product_info.php?cPath=21&products_id=228&osCsid=6cvd1e6o6lg5jen2482krr7ib4), which are closely related to the rosies and purportedly simple, as spiders go, to breed and rear. I am thinking of picking up a couple of each and see if I can't get them to adulthood. At that point, if I end up with males, I may try breeding them.

If I succeed, I will send you some. Their egg sacs contain a couple of hundred. ;D

[honehe.livejournal.com]

Aaawww, Josephine DOES look like a kiwi fruit with LEGS!

So ridiculously cute. Not even fair! D:

:D:D:D