In some cultures if one saves a life, one is responsible for that life so I guess in this case if one disturbs a life, one is responsible for it. Tarantulas are my game and I have no idea what this is or what to do with it. Traveling in RV and have no ID books etc.

Found this while walking out in desert in southern AZ.

You can see the shell it was encased in. That was closed and attached on underside of large metal can. Can was lying out in open rock area, full sun. Opened the sac thinking it was old egg case or something of the likes and to my surprise the little cutie was inside. Wonder if it is gravid.

Knowing that it would most likely become part of food chain, I took it back to RV and put it in tiny KK with coconut substrate, water in dish with gravel. Now couple house later, it is sitting quietly and appears to be grooming.

What is it? How do I care for it? and if any one nearby wants it, I would be happy for it to have home.

June[ATTACH][ATTACH]873[/ATTACH][/ATTACH]

Wierd, legs look hairy like a tarantula, but that is not the booty of a tarantula. Got a decent carapace shot? What's the legspan?

Maybe some kind of Purseweb
but it resembles a tiny Pterinochilus LOL

Better picture

Leg span about 2-2.25 from front 1 across to back 4 opposite side. Thin, long legs. Make great spider runway model ;-> Fangs ebony black. Distal portion of leg gets darker till charcoal at end.

June[ATTACH]874[/ATTACH]

That is no tarantula, judging by the eye pattern, it's probably a huntsman.

Olios

maybe O. giganteus


very cool pets

keep it like a drier arboreal

Olios species huntsman

Thanks folks. So now think I know what I have.

Second part if what kind of care? reference to care sheet or likes would great.

Is this spider that folks like to keep as I will not but don't want to dump it out when suspect that is not warm enough for it to find food yet.

I gave it a tiny cricket but it mostly is grooming. Maybe after a winter incased, it needs good bath.

June

looks to be a gravid female.

????

anyone else agree?

people keep them as pets


don't let it go if you already gave it petfood (the cricket). you could introduce all kinds of bad pathogens and parasites into nature. when we collect a spider, and especially feed it, it (and its offspring) become a permanent part of our collection. it is the only responsible thing to do. (p.s. i am researching/writing an article about invert pathogens and parasites to demonstrate that we DO need to be careful about such things)


you have seen how they make their sleeping bag (and they make that same structure to brood eggsacs). give her a vertically oriented enclosure with attention to preventing her from making her sleepign back in the neck/opening of the enclosure (mine did that... quite annoying). they can stand it a little drier than you might be used to... in fact, some ~desert hunstmen have their feet turn black when they are kept too moist. other than that... basically treat it as a small arboreal tarantula




also, all we can tell is that it is well fed. my O. giganteus were much thinner when i got them and both produced multiple eggsacs. i would like to see people move away from equating well fed with gravidity or intense premolt.... it just means the bug at a lot.

since your writing an article about it i guess it would be wrong for me to ask you to state where you came up with this, cant wait to read you paper

how much reading on the subject have you done, mike?


not much, i assume, from your cavalier attitude

well, get ready cuz here comes a data dump. this isn't even everything i have read i have a couple few books on biology and inverts that are at home or in storage

http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=1847501
http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/picrender.fcgi?artid=1847501&blobtype=pdf
http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/286127?journalCode=an
http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/pdf/10.1086/286127
http://www.funpecrp.com.br/GMR/year2005/vol3-4/gmr0160_full_text.htm
http://www.european-arachnology.org/proceedings/19th/Haupt.PDF
http://www.americanarachnology.org/JoA_free/JoA_v16_n3/JoA_v16_p373.pdf
http://books.google.com/books?id=NMiVQoTakeoC&pg=PA148&lpg=PA148&dq=theraphosidae+pathogens&source=web&ots=s5prO7UKl6&sig=D1dosJ-evq826muzx2RPY9QUI2o
http://www.google.com/search?num=50&hl=en&newwindow=1&safe=off&q=theraphosidae+pathogens
http://www.americanarachnology.org/JoA_free/JoA_v21_n2/JoA_v21_p120.pdf
http://www.springerlink.com/content/m76h450771488866/
http://beheco.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/reprint/15/4/602.pdf
http://books.google.com/books?id=aluUgDVYJ8wC&pg=PA21&lpg=PA21&dq=bacillus+thuringiensis+arachnids&source=web&ots=HsormAZBKs&sig=-TWxMWoFK3uRsQY5eyibPPH9bqQ
http://entweb.clemson.edu/scesweb/archives/233/111.pdf
http://www.environmental-entomology.co.uk/invbacsa.html
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=bacillus+thuringiensis+arachnids
http://www.cababstractsplus.org/google/abstract.asp?AcNo=20043158435



so far i have found evidence of various pathogens that can cross Orders and maybe even Classes. so far i have found nothing to lend itself to such a short sighted and simple view of invert pathogens. so far i have found tons of stuff to make me pretty nervous. i think people have the right to mess around with their own collection however they see fit... however i do not think anyone has the write to carelessly put all the animals in nature at risk


p.s. every well educated person i have talked to or read their thoughts on the subject essentially agrees with me. find me a degreed entomologist or arachnologist that says it is fine to release stuff that has been in contact with your exotic collection and tools and i will perhaps adopt a more temperate stance

p.p.s.... where are *your* cites to prove this is rubbish? i must admit, i find your confrontational tone quite puzzling given the subject matter. after all... it is the bugs i am concerned about

i just dont see the USDA allowing crickets with potentially harmful pathogens to move from state to state and look forward to reading all that info thanx

well

1) who is going to check all the crickets in all the petstores?
2) how? a full check would costs $1000's per cricket as some conditions are only evident upon disection and like, organic analysis
3) who in the heck said the problem would *come* from crickets? i envision them beign a vector for some other source as much as the ~source themselves
4) i am actually quite concerned about exotic fungal parasites. many species have chitolysic secretions that allow them to burrow *through* the exoskeleton of arthropods! this breaches a very important layer of the arthropod immune system (just like in people) and can allow other things that otherwise would not stand a chance to invade. tarantulas vaunted mouth filters are worthless against such an attack. also... fungus reproduce by spores which can phoretically transfer from a targetable host, to a nontargetable transportation species, and then back to a targetable host
5) how likely do you really think it is that all the spiders that were taken perfect care of just "die for no reason"? i submit a small percentage possibly are infected with *something*.
6) i would say most pathogens are not actually leathal and most do not leave very easy to find traces. most reduce vitality and fecundity. want some of *That* running around lose in a nature not coevolved to deal with it?


7) you want to know how to have the hobby disappear over night? it isn't by having someone get bit by something nasty... mess with bees. i am close to finding chains of hosts that would demonstrate some pathogens could start in a collection and end up hurting bees. that would be the Big Game Over.

You can knock off the rant mode any time. We have seen this same thing from you before.

"crickets are going to kill the hobby". Right.

When you have a single PhD chime in supporting your theories in some sort of peer reviewed document, I'll be in the forefront with you, until then, take it easy.

obviously you are not actually reading what i am writing. nice of you to reply anyways, though

considering there are a number of threads RIGHT NOW with ppl with nematodes in their collections... if nothing else... i shouldn't have to prove anything else. how did they get the nematodes into their collection initially? how do the nematodes spread (recall some ppl have lost up to 90% of their collection to it)? what is their lifecycle in our pets? until we can answer these questions about nematodes and other infections it is just plain careless to assume we can not transfer anything to the native wildlife around us when it is clearly demonstrable otherwise.

i honestly can not understand the opposition i am facing.



so Christian.... since you seem intent to er, contribute... why is there no chance of spreading nematodes from Theraphosidae in collection to Theraphosidae in nature? oh... and do site your sources

I refuse to engage in some sort of debate. I know there are nematodes, primarily in Californian collections from my notes and observations. While they are not isolated there, I don't see reports with any patterning other than that.

I fully agree the instant something comes into captivity, it should stay there, even to the point of telling folks to not "release" slings into the wild. Often well meaning folks make horrible mistakes.

I do think ranting from the roof tops that crickets will destroy our hobby overnight is next to useless, long words or not.

So when are you going to do that degree anyway? I think tracking down the source of these nasties and the possible ecological problem they present, not to mention what it means to many hobbies would make a nice tidy Master's thesis.

In any case, it's good to see folks using their tax dollars and taping into pubmed.


Oh! Where are these threads?!?

Christian

Can I ask a question? How do farm-raised crickets get infected ? Where do the pathogens come from? Another planet?

OMG I probably have already infected the environment. I can't count the number of rogue crickets that have gotten away here. Live in RV so is short hike to the exit and bet the little bugger make a run for it. Am frequently moving about and camping out in the desert thru out the southwest. May have seeded infected crickets over thousands of acres by now. TIC way IC

June

ok... Christian... so you agree that nothing should be released from collection to wild... what exactly are you disagreeing with?


further, you agree that there are nematodes in hobby (in CA or otherwise... guess what... ppl trade all the time) and failed to define vector or host range... and yet you still seem intent on arguing... what?


Rhys... i have said crickets are one possible vector. in point of fact, i think mites, collembola, and various flies are all more likely (and more dangerous vectors)...

as to root source... i am much more expecting that at least a small percentage of WC specimens have some form of pathogen in them. it is quite illogical to assume all WC are clean. generally speaking, most pathogens are pretty host specific... down to being species specifc... but some are generalists. hell, some can survive WITH OUT a host for quite a while. what i expect is that WC spread some form of pathogen to flies, mites, or springtails and then *those* spread to other cages and what not. sadly, this means it would be quite difficult to totally insulate the wilds from our collections. but it is certainly not carte blanche to ignore the possiblity.


the amusing thing is that if i had a similar thread on a herp board i would be laughed at for not being firm enough. just about every other culturing hobby is more advanced than ours... and know that exotic diseases can wreak havoc on native animals


look up the California Desert Tortoise if you are bored and want to see the kinds of things i think about


p.s. i love the fact that you are blindly concentrating on the cricket angle and not reading or acknowledging anything else.