Tonka's Home!

Robin huge congrats on that fella!!! :banana: LOVE the name too! :D

Amazing packaging Ed! :)

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Originally Posted by nitroball

Sorry to sound like an idiot, but what is "spinning behavior"? BTW, he is a handsome boy!!:gj:

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Spiders are known to have a behavior, believed to be linked to the spider gene that can range from very mild to very extreme, where they either have a barely detectable head wobble, all the way to corkscrewing on themselves. The corkscrewing behavior is referred to as spinning.

Some are hatched with a very pronounced spin, but grow out of it, some may have a barely detectable head wobble when hatched, but develop severe spinning.

In most cases, it doesn't appear to affect the health of the animal, because they continue to feed, defecate, grow and breed.

They are also known for their very "friendly" type of personality. It's something that all potential spider owners should be prepared for. It can be very disconcerting to even a prepared new owner the first time they see the behavior displayed.

Great looking guy! Glad it worked out for you.

Very nice packing job as well. Plus I love the "inspector". :D

Could you elaborate how they exhibit this "friendly" behaviour Robin? I am interested to know what they do. (I never met a Spider)

even got their logo on the bag lol.... great lookin snake and great documentation to go with it. looks like it came from a great place. ill have to check their website out. good luck wit it.

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Originally Posted by DesignerBP

even got their logo on the bag lol.... great lookin snake and great documentation to go with it. looks like it came from a great place. ill have to check their website out. good luck wit it.

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Ed is also a mod here, by the way - Freakie Frog. ;)

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Originally Posted by jblaze

Could you elaborate how they exhibit this "friendly" behaviour Robin? I am interested to know what they do. (I never met a Spider)

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They seem far more curious than other ball pythons (in general). They often hold their heads to a slight tilt, like a puppy looks at you with their head cocked to the side.

They stretch their necks out to come greet you when you open the tub, less inhibited than some of my other animals - ready to meet the world. Less shy.

Adam Wysocki of 8ballpythons wrote a great blog a little over 2 years ago about spiders called "The real 'spin' on Spiders".

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When I purchased my first spider many years ago, I had heard and was told about “spinning” in spider ball pythons. The way it was described, I understood “spinning” to be a condition where the animal continually loops their head and neck in a “corkscrew” motion and barely has the ability to sit still. I looked over my spider and there was no “cork screwing” so in my mind, he wasn’t a “spinner”.

Over the years that followed as I raised my spider, I heard a lot of big breeders making statements like “all spiders spin” or “all spiders are tweaked” and I really got pissed off. How could they be saying stuff like that? All they were doing was hurting any chance I ever had at selling spiders. Surely I would produce spiders that didn’t spin and if they were telling people that every single one was “tweaked”, I’d be cooked!

Then, I started producing my own spiders. Within my first couple of clutches I noticed a couple that “weren’t right”, but no big deal, I just wouldn’t sell those. Then I started looking harder. I noticed different degrees of odd behavior in all of the spiders that I produced. Some shook their head from side to side, some spun like tops, and others did the corkscrew thing as they were cruising their cage at night, still others were less noticeable but it was there. The less noticeable ones didn’t wobble or corkscrew, but they held their head at an angle when you looked at them. Kind of like the way a dog looks when it hears something it doesn’t understand. So then I started looking at spiders. Spiders in my friends collections, spiders at shows, spiders in pictures posted on the internet. All of them do it do some degree, all of them.

I’ve read the internet rumors that it has something to do with the amount of white, or the head pattern, or the connecting or non-connecting neck stripe on the animals neck … bologna! It doesn’t matter, they all do it. I’ve also heard that spider siblings do it. After producing tons of spider clutches, I don’t find that to be an accurate statement. I do believe that breeders have seen “spinning” in spider siblings, but I don’t think that it is any more common in the normal looking siblings of spiders than it is in any other normal looking ball python. Over the years (and before I ever heard of spinning in spiders) I have produced a heterozygous albino and a normal looking pastel sibling that spin the exact same way that spiders do. I feel that it is a condition that can effect all ball pythons but for whatever reason is common in spiders. I’ve also heard that the reason spiders spin is because they were so inbred early on in the project … ridiculous. The recessive mutations out there have been inbred/line bred by an order of magnitude more than spiders. The notion that a co-dominant/dominant mutation can be inbred more than a recessive is an ill informed one.

I finally understood what the big breeders were saying. It’s not always as in your face as people expect it to be, but it’s there in each and every spider. You just have to know what to look for. Now I know a lot of people are going to read this and say “no, not my spider”. I’m telling you, your spider does it too. You just have to know what to look for. I’m not sure what the answer is, but I know one thing for sure … spin or not, I LOVE SPIDERS! I love their natural variation, I love the combos that they make, I love everything about them. I will always breed and produce spiders. I will do my best to keep my customers informed about them as much as I am and leave the decision to them. If I have to end up keeping every spider and spider I produce … well, that’s fine with me!

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Kevin McCurley who imported the spider (the one that all spiders are descendents of) even said on Reptile Radio that the first spider seemed far more outgoing than his other animals, and it really endeared him to the spider.

I'm glad to hear lil Tonka is in GA, Robin. He looks gorgeous, and even better he is at Deb's house, which means you have the best (if you ever needed any that is) excuse to see da pieds! :D lol

Nice! And super professional.

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Originally Posted by Jyson

I'm glad to hear lil Tonka is in GA, Robin. He looks gorgeous, and even better he is at Deb's house, which means you have the best (if you ever needed any that is) excuse to see da pieds! :D lol

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LOL - you're right - I certainly don't need any excuse, the pieds are excuse enough! I'm a little concerned though, she's threatened to keep Tonka for herself! :O