Tarantula Madness

[Green_Elite_Cab]

You know, since having preserved bugs behind glass wasn't enough for me!

This is my Avicularia avicularia, also known as a Pink-Toe Tarantula. I figured it was a little more colorful and interesting than the generic big dessert tarantulas, though its a little smaller, only a 3 inch legspan right now. It can get up to 5" if I'm lucky. This one likes to live in the trees (arboreal).

So far its been a huge headache. In reality, these things are SUPER LOW maintenance, but because I'm new to large tropical spiders, it makes me neurotic all the same. Apparently, tarantulas in general have such a low metabolic rate they can go ages without eating, barely need any water, and sometimes they don't even move for days. Mine has decided to go the former route of not eating anything for a month. Normally, they might only eat 6 to 8 crickets in a month, and that would be considered a lot! In the wild, it likely survived on much less.

This makes sense to me, because how many creatures are going to stick around when a giant spider comes walking by?

In any event, its a VERY docile spider, and you can actually almost pet it, as it doesn't seem scared and it doesn't try to attack or bite (unlike some wolf spiders I had in the past, that would attack ANYTHING that went near them). I usually avoid bothering it though, since even though these things probably don't perceive the world like mammals do, bother it probably does disrupt it somehow.