Tarantula Madness

[Green_Elite_Cab]

Some news here.

My Chilean Rose Hair Tarantula molted, and turned out to be a male! Until tarantulas reach maturity, its hard to tell the sex. Mature male tarantulas though stand out. Their legs get MUCH longer (where a female would get much bulkier), and the front set of legs have "hooks" on them (these hold back the female's fangs while mating, and help lift her up). Their pedipalps (leg-like appendages near their mouths) have male specialized structures as well.

He grew quite a bit! He easily went from one of my smaller tarantulas to competing for largest! I still can't believe he grew so much! You can definitely compare this photo to prior pictures to see the difference. The colors are much more vibrant now than they were as well!

Unfortunately, its a bittersweet event. This is considered the male tarantula's "Ultimate Molt". Once they reach maturity, most male tarantulas die (female tarantulas of the same age can live at least a decade longer). A few male tarantulas will try to molt again, but they rarely survive, and almost always suffer deformity due to the changes to their body. Even then, those rare few that manage a post-ultimate molt usually die of old age.

If I'm lucky, he'll still be alive a year from now. After that, it would be rare for him to make it another year.



Here is the shed skin next to him. They are about level with each other, not forced perspective there!






I also got a new tarantula, a Chilean Dwarf Flame Tarantula. The exact species isn't clear, but what is clear is that this species has a VERY docile personality, and it is very active. While many of my other tarantulas either hide or are "pet rocks", this one is almost always walking around, and is hard to photograph! I actually let this one take a walk on me briefly (but I could tell it didn't want to step on my hands, so it ran back into its cage).

This makes it ideal for school talks and things (and I have been asked to do such presentations! I also do one on Fossils and Minerals).

Here, you can an HO RS3 i'm working on just below its cage, which gives you a sense for his size. It is a little bigger than a large wolf spider.



This is a bad cell phone picture, but basically it is just a mini tarantula.



In other news, that Cobalt Blue Tarantula buried itself in its enclosure and hasn't come out for almost a month. I checked on it a few days ago, though I didn't plan on pestering it because they have a poor attitude, and it may have been getting ready for a molt. It will come out when it decides to. I used to be able to see it in it's burrow, but it webbed the whole glass side up to the point where it is impossible to view it. This spider demands privacy!