Trantula Bald spot

[Shadowspider]

Well, one thing is for certain, whoever you got it from doesn't know taratntulas very well. That most certainally is not a G. rosea. What it is, is anyone's guess.
As far as breeding, uhh, yeah, breeding is not something you want to try and do without knowing what species it is.
Kind of a bummer that it's a male. Hope you didn't pay a lot for it as it will live for maybe a year....if you're lucky.

[dr del]

O.K.

Forget I mentioned breeding.

The colour change reminded me of something and it's taken me a little while to track it down.

I used to have a white collared tarantula (Eupalaestrus weijenberghi) which I sold way to early becuse I didnt realise the size they could get to ( 4" apparenly in legspan). Sadly I can only find the one shed skin and its got all dark and dirty.

The reason I mention this in this thread is that this species has the same dramatic male colour change at the final molt as the spider owned by the O.P.

Is this a very common thing in tarantulas? I tried to take a pic of the shed skin on the article I found but it didnt come out very well. In real life however she was the same light fawn colour as the O.P.'s too - but the knee stripes weren't as pronounced if memory serves.



As can be seen I am no david bailey - the article does say that to kick hair they raise their bum and back legs so they are in fact kicking forward over their own heads. They are stunningly docile though so I never got to see this.


dr del

[Shadowspider]

Well, the problem with photo IDing is that color and/or markings are misleading. The post molt color of the spider can not be taken as a true to life color because of photo quality, lighting, the spider's position (angle) etc.
The next problem, with this particular spider is that many tarantula species are quite light in color pre molt and get quite dark post molt or vise versa. Also, the leg striping is charastic of many tarantula species.
Further more, MM (mature males) often times look very different than their female counterparts. Take Psalmopeous sp. for example. The males look every bit like the females until their maturing molt, then they are much lighter. P. cambridgei look much like P. irminia until the males mature, then they are lighter.
A. seemani are very light in color when young (or small in size when speaking about males) as are E. murnius, E. camps. and many others. All of these are light in pre molt and very dark post molt and all have simular leg striping.
The number of tarantula species that exhibit these charastics are many, thus, IDing is next to impossible via a photograph.

[dr del]

Cool, thanks for the info.


Yeah I know the camera I'm using does horrible things to colours. I knew there were variations in colours before and after molt but didn't realise they were this common or extreme.

Did the O.P say if he kept the shed skin? ( I have a box of them sitting around here in various states of disintegration). Would that provide any clues to identification or anything? It seems a pity he bought a new pet and it's now not going to be with him long.

Oh, and does anyone know how to combat smiley addiction?



dr del

[Shadowspider]

I don't know about the exuvia. Even so, it would have to be sent off to a toxonimist for ID.

As for the smilie additction....use the quick reply and DON"T memorize the emote codes....that's what I do otherwise I tend to get emote happy.

[Laooda]

K, I owned a Rose Hair girl from MY age of 15 till I was 31.... So, I'm assuming that I took relatively good care of her.... So, here's my Hijack question...

WHAT are those pellet things!?!?!?

[ErikH]

K, I owned a Rose Hair girl from MY age of 15 till I was 31.... So, I'm assuming that I took relatively good care of her.... So, here's my Hijack question...

WHAT are those pellet things!?!?!?

Hard to say, but my guess is urticating hairs. They frequently wad up into little puffs like that.

[JLC]

Hard to say, but my guess is urticating hairs. They frequently wad up into little puffs like that.

I don't think she's asking about hairs....but about the pellets of food(?) in a little food dish. Why would there be pellet-food in a T's enclosure? (And if that's not what she's asking about, it's still something that tweaked MY curiosity... )

[xdeus]

I don't think she's asking about hairs....but about the pellets of food(?) in a little food dish. Why would there be pellet-food in a T's enclosure? (And if that's not what she's asking about, it's still something that tweaked MY curiosity... )

Same with me. Also...

As far as breeding, uhh, yeah, breeding is not something you want to try and do without knowing what species it is.

Why not?

[ErikH]

Same with me. Also...



Why not?

My bad, I didn't notice the food dish and pellets. I thought we were referring to the photos in the original post.


You don't want to breed if you don't know the species because the last thing anyone wants is for the hobby to get flooded with hybrids, especially when you don't even know what species are involved. If you are buying a b. smithi sling for example, you don't want one that is a cross breed between a b. smithi and a b. vagans (if such a hybrid is even possible).