This month has positively zipped by, and lots has happened in spider land... follow me, dear readers, as I bring you up to date with the merry or otherwise goings-on that make up June 2008's diary...

LATEST HEADLINES... Bank Holiday edition extra large diary !! 

We all see things we've never seen before...
We have a conversation about sex...
Tarantula Dating Service Launched...
Welcoming 2 new arrivals...
We're building an arboreal tank...
and moving someone into a Terrestrial home too...
It's another monster photo / video edition !
'Fangs Special' video

Let's start off with some spider sex. Regular readers may or may not have noticed that I don't really care whether my tarantulas are male or female, and usually globally refer to them all as 'her', whether I think they are female or not... This month, however the issue of 'who is a girl and who is not' has been brought to the fore my the events in spider diary land !

For anyone who hasn't see the video 'lunch and a wander', here it is again - but before you watch it, there are new things to notice ! Fluffy here, referred to erroneously throughout the entire video as 'she', most definitely isn't ! Shortly after posting this clip to arachnoboards, several sharp-eyed arachno-loons wrote in to tell me that our young girl Fluffy here, is none of the above - not fluffy, young, OR a girl !! Yep - HE is a now a mature male Peruvian Orange-stripe T. How do we know this ? 2 signs, both of which I was not expecting and missed completely, until my friends on the spiderboards pointed out the obvious :) !!

1. Pedipalps change

Yes, if we look at Fluffy's video below, we can see that his pedipalps how have only 2 sections where they did have 3. The end sections, which used to resemble 'mini-feet' are now club-shaped, and designed for the new purpose at hand.

2. Hooks appear...

Again, watching the video, it is very easy to see the hooks at the middle joint of the front legs. These are used to keep the female's fangs out of the way while he goes for an insertion of his sperm packet. Like the pedipalps, the legs have only changed form on the most recent moult. 

So, I am now searching for a female of the species and trying to find him a mate. I haven't got a great deal of time to play with. That was likely to have been Fluffy's last moult, and he is likely to die at some point in the next 6-8 months. If he does moult again (and he probably won't), then he might get stuck in it, and expire there. All very sad, but part of natural spider life and death, so to be expected.

But Fluffy is not the only mature male we know about...

Legz has done his final moult too. Did I know when he did so ? Absolutely not. I had no idea he was male, or mature until around 2 days after his moult when I was checking up on him, and found new things attached to him that weren't there before. I was quite worried when I enlarged the photos I took, and he seemed to be bleeding, and have what looked like some horrendous tick attached to him. You can see the photo I took below...

So, doing what any concerned T-keeper does when they don't know what's going on, I took that photo, and posted it to the online spider-community, and lo and behold, the answer arrived. The red bit is actually Legz newly emerged male sex organ, one of what are called the Palpal Emboli. These are used to store sperm as it is transferred from the sperm web to the female.

The haemolymph (tarantula blood equivalent, for those that don't know) in the photo is apparently nothing to worry about, and I haven't seen any signs of it since, despite lots of photos of this wonderful spider. And it looks like we should get as many photos of him while we can. The sad fact is that he won't be for this world much longer either. He is also on my list in the 'looking for love' department. In the meantime, let's thank goodness for removable burrow walls, and go and look at some recent shots of our favourite fully grown arboreal tarantula as he basks in his dark corners... enjoy.

 

But hang on, that's a new tank isn't it ? Oh yes it is - well spotted.

If you'd like to see how I built that tank, there is a fully-featured new article available here. Here's a photo of the finished thing, hopefully a house fit for an adult male poecilotheria.

I could also tell you how the transfer went, which was an interesting, enlightening, and calm experience. As you know, when spider's are growing, I like to give them what I have come to refer to as a 'stressless tank transfer'. This involves putting the old enclosure into the new one, and allowing the spider to come out into its new home any time it wants, even if it takes months for the spider to take me up on that offer.

Sometimes, however, and in cases such as the one here, this approach isn't going to work - the old tank won't fit inside the new one. Ordinarily, I would now resort to the cup and sheet method of T-transfer, where I would 'bottle-top' the tarantula, manoeuvre it onto a sheet of clear plastic, and then lift to the new tank, and release, but is very hard to do this without scaring and alarming the spider. I have been thinking about other ways to move large spiders from one place to another, and thought that I would try a new approach when moving Legz. My aims remain the same as ever:

So, I decided to 'walk' Legz from one tank to another. In the video below I use the same technique to show young Boots the way to his own new tank. What we do is use our long handled artist's paint brush to gently touch the spider's individual legs, which makes the spider want to move that leg away, and performed repeatedly, can show it quickly and easily which way you'd like it to go. It is important, I have found, to touch the paint brush on the surface just behind the spider's leg, and then brush towards the leg, stopping when you just make contact - this means that the spider knows the touch is coming, and isn't taken by surprise by a brush that arrives from out of nowhere.

So, with my trusty paintbrush to hand (as well as several large spider catchers to help me if he bolted), I moved the tanks, old and new so that they were in close proximity to each other, making sure both were on a flat surface close to the floor so that the spider would not fall far if he did choose to run. Then, I removed the top of his old tank, and started to remove furniture and water bowls until there was only the spider, and the large piece of cork bark remaining. Fortunately he wasn't on the bark, but hiding on the floor of the tank beneath it. If he had been on the bark, I would have just turned it over, so he was on the top side of it. So...

I reached in, and very gently removed the cork bark, leaving him exposed, and prepared for him to choose now as an ideal moment to rush out. However, he did no such thing, and remained calm and still at the base of his old tank. All good so far. Out came the paintbrush to show him the way.

The whole thing took less than 5 minutes. Initially, he didn't want to move, and would just move one leg away from the brush, but was very calm, did not even threat once, and certainly did not move to bite. No, he just allowed himself to be guided in the right direction, and he walked calmly and purposefully towards his new tank. As soon as he got there, he didn't pause to look round, but headed over for one of his 2 new burrows, and found a safe place right between them.

A while later, and some photos have emerged of him having settled down into both the burrow areas I provided. Note the removable black card side panels (attached with magnetic tape) that give him complete darkness, and me photo opportunities that I would never get otherwise... 

As usual, it would be a bit of a waste not to click these for  full size views
(opens in a new window / tab - close to return to the diary)... 

So that is his newly-emerged male-ness 'Legz', looking his mature best, and in what will sadly probably be his final home...

So, moving on to a related area, I have now launched the 'Tarantula dating' page...

Yes, now that I have spiders mature and ready for love action I would not be doing my job if I wasn't doing my level best to find other keepers with species of spider that might like to mate with my own. I'm not having great luck so far. A lot of the people in the world that keep T's don't do so here in the UK, and even less of them do so in the South-East !! If you'd like to read all about that, or would like to contact me and prove me wrong, then feel free to click here ...

And now we move to the video vaults, where a rather grisly compilation of spider-munching action has surfaced...

For anyone who has followed these diaries for any amount of time will know, I am fascinated my almost every aspect of these animals, not just the 'killing power' and various pointy appendages they may possess, as negatively popularised in film and other media. However, there is no denying that eating, and the catching of prey is a very important and fairly large part of every spider's life, and they are indeed equipped with some remarkable means of doing so. So if you are neither young (parents may not want young people to see nature at it's most unpleasant), overly squeamish, and don't have much sympathy for crickets, then feel free to watch the video below... Likewise, as we're not dealing with the pleasant end of things there will be no 'light jazz' soundtracks to be found, so I hope you like your music shouty for this one !

I've colour-coded the credits red for this one, and will do in the future, so you'll always know if there is potentially grisly content in a Spider Diaries video. Not that I often make quite such graphic ones, and indeed the next one in today's diary is a very different affair... and our favourite calm jazz makes a return too :) 

Oh yes indeed, 2 more marvellous little examples of spidery goodness have arrived on the diaries' doorstep. A suitable amount of time was spent after little Blue's death considering whether I would look after any other spiders, but with onward resolve and a doubled attention to care levels, I decided I would, and found these small spiderlings awaiting homes...

So who's first - Legz's cousin perhaps ? Also hailing from Sri Lanka, but this time the temperate foot hills thereof, I am delighted to introduce you all to young 'Whizz' - a 3rd instar Pocilotheria Subfusca, or Ivory Ornamental Tarantula.

Here she is, doing the T-equivalent of 'blinking in the light' in the moments she was freed from her comprehensive postal wrappings (spiderlings do fine in the post generally, assuming they are superbly packed).

Oh, isn't she wonderful? I could spoil the surprise and show you what she'll look like when she grows up, but it's potentially so spectacular I would be doing you a favour to make you all wait and see :) Anyway - interesting facts about Whizz include...

 

 

In another first for the diaries, we welcome an obligate burrower to the fold ! Oh yes, Ginny, our adult A.seemanni burrows, but not like this one ! This, my friends, is 'Blaze', who will grow up to be  stunningly coloured, and an animal with behaviour unique amongst tarantulas.  Blaze is a Columbian Giant Red leg (Megaphobema robustum for those who like to be Latin-ly in the know) Currently, she is tiny at around 3 cm legspan, and 3rd instar, but was only 2nd when I first received her. She arrived, found her bamboo tube burrow, parked at the bottom of it, and moulted almost straight away ! Lucky she arrived the day she did, and not one day later, or she would have had to have moulted in delivery, which might well have been disastrous.

He she is, once parted from her shipping housing...

 and here she is again, this time close up, and entering my recently provided burrow tubing...

This one is not full-viewable due to my questionable focussing, but you should see how difficult it is to get that angle !! 

So, what can I tell you about baby Blaze ? Columbian red-legs are large, defensive, easily annoyed, but supremely beautiful and interesting ground-dwelling terrestrial burrowers hailing from the Jungle floors of Columbia. They have proportionally larger back legs than other T's, possibly for use in their unique defensive system which can involve dramatically spinning in a circle, aiming to catch attackers with the sharpened spines found there. They also bob up and down on their legs, rear end aimed towards the threat, appearing like a more vigorous and larger animal than they actually are. They have bright orange legs (with which to copiously kick hairs), and a deeply velvet opsithosoma gives these spiders a striking appearance, especially after a moult, though we may be relatively unlucky and have a species variation that is not so brightly coloured - only time will tell...

This spider IS the proverbial 'pet hole' and we will be lucky to see her very often, but hopefully, with a bit of quality tank design, and some crafty burrow-spying, we might be lucky enough to make a hidden spider regularly watchable. That, and she has to come out to drink ! I have placed her water bowl above ground...

She also prefers cooler temperatures, according to the care sheets, but I have noticed that mine chooses to sit near a heatmat if there is one available, so maybe here in the UK, spring room temps (central heating off) are too cold for them, and heating should be provided. I have chosen to do so whilst I monitor the situation. What I have done is given her a ready-made burrow that a) she can extend underground so that she can be next to moist soil if she wishes, and b) so that she might just sit near the glass at the base of the tank so I can get a camera somewhere near her sometime in the next 4 months ! She is not a fast spider, or particularly venemous, but rather short-tempered, and brave with it, so first in the queue to flick hairs at the slightest sign of disturbance. Perhaps it is not such a shame that she lives underground, and my interaction with her is likely to be minimal !

If she DOES turnout to be aggressive, she will be the first in my collection to be that way, despite fearsome reputations that some spiders I keep may have - all mine are very calm and slow to show irritation. It is my hope that this is because they are poked and prodeed and treated disrespectfully, as I see with ever-more-disappointing frequency on other youtube videos.

I shall pause to have a quick rant - the first in the diaries so far, I believe, but possibly not the last: That really does make me cross - videos titled things like 'Evil tarantula goes nuts', or 'devil-spider going mental' and then showing some poor little animal attempting to mind its own business except that it can't because some idiot is repeatedly poking at it with a stick until it feels really quite stressed, and reacts defensively. Spiders, on the whole, and in my experience DO NOT BEHAVE LIKE THIS if you just take away the idiots with the sticks.

Right - whinge over, and back to the happenings in spider land. No need to explain in words (we've had rather a lot of those this time round), so straight over to another new video, this time documenting just one single night at the Spider Diaries...

Over to Ginny, Boots, Legz, and Whizz to show you the way...

Boots is up next, who we have just seen wandering from one tank to the next...

 

 

 

 

 So what about all the other spiders that haven't made it into this month's update ?

Flash (who has been only very briefly in the video above, and only then because I managed to get a camera actually inside her burrow!!) has been almost invisible this month as she hides in the most secluded of her 3 tube webs, assumedly preparing for an impending moult - it has been ages since she has been hanging out anywhere where she would normally catch food, so I am guessing the moult is due fairly soon.

Temebrus is eating well but not doing much else, and spends a lot of time in her cork bark tube, safe in the dark, so I assume all is well there - I see her often enough during night wanderings (hers and mine) to know all is well.

Binky has been eating roaches again, and the 'darling bugs of May' (thats Maybugs to the rest of us) have contributed to his diet, and ZBD's too this month - those silly cockchafer beetles really do pick the wrong houses to fly into sometimes... Unfortunately I fluffed the video for both these feedings, so next year I'll try and do a better job :) Talking of fluff...

Fluffy has been out for another wander or 2, in a nicely controlled environment, and then safely returned to his tank half an hour later. Being an adult male, we have to watch him at feeding times, as he feels the need to go looking for females, and will always desert his tank if he can.

Boots, who certainly isn't absent from this report does deserve another quick mention in that he learnt how to deal with roaches this month too ! And didn't he do well, as we'll see in next month's videos...

And lastly, for this month's bank holiday special diary, we end on a very positive note. Spider-viewing figures are at an all-time high and over 1200 of you visited this last month, so thank for your support !! Until next month, take care, and that's goodbye from me, and the 10 girls...

B, B, B, G, W, Z, F, F, L, T and me...