So, you want to keep a pet tarantula?

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Originally posted by Nexus
Nice one! Bet your pretty relieved now.
Just a bit mate! I was about to look a right prat going back to the shop & asking for another :o ... not to mention an unseemly demise for the T in question :(



Originally posted by hsp70
this thread just get's bigger and bigger :D

with regards to the high-leg walking thing. it's a nervous walk. t's walk like that in order to get a better view of their surrounds when they feel nervous. normally they don't have very good perripheral vision as their knee's of their legs block out pretty much most of their view :D
Him.her.it was walking up my arm at the time; maybe the hairs wern't to it's liking; or maybe as LK said; I was startling it by breathing on it.


Now back in it's jar :)
 
Glad you found it safe and sound - as hsp70 says, the "high-legged walk" is characteristic of smaller spiders. It's the only way they can tell where they're going, like a blind man using his stick. Tarantula eyesight is very poor.
 
Well; HHI (aka HimHerIt - GF's choice of name :rolleyes: - but I think I'm going to call "it" Houdini ;) ) has survived his first night here

Houdini has taken the opportunity to dig out a little U shaped tunnel around the side of it's home - about 3" in length. I'm pretty sure there was already a little "naturally occuring" tunnel there where I hadn't put the peaty stuff in evenly & then he's gone and dug it out more - looks like a good piece of energy saving opportunism on Houdini's part :)
 
Glad you found your little B. vagans Repo. Now just make sure that there are no holes in his tank any larger than his abdomen. Put a pair of tights or something around the lid just to be on the safe side so he doesn't do it again :)

Brachypelma vagans are obligate burrowers so it's always a good idea to give them lots of substrate. Sanchez has about 3" of substrate and created a whole underground lair. with 3 branching tunnels :D Very interesting to watch them dig too because they do it so slowly and methodically, picking each bit up in their pedipalps and carrying it to dump it elsewhere.... like their waterbowl :D
 
Here is Shiva, as I have decided to name her. Taken just before I dropped a cricket in, which she is now happily munching on.

shiva.jpg


The orange thing is a shot glass opening, to give some idea of the size.
 
Some of you may be wondering why I've discouraged si_sleaf from keeping an Indian Ornamental (Poecilotheria regalis)

I'm generally of the opinion that if you're sensible, then you can keep any species successfully. However, we all make mistakes and with a fast-moving Ornamental you're all the more likely to get caught out.

While there have been no recorded deaths from Tarantula bites, some genus' do have what is know as "Medically Significant" venom - where you may suffer painful after effects.

Such tarantulas tend to be confined to Africa and Asia

Chilobrachys
Haplopelma
Poecilotheria
Pterinochilus
Stromatopelma

And so on. While I'm pretty sure si_sleaf is capable of keeping a P regalis with no problems whatsoever, I don't want to be the one who said "Yeah, you can keep that it will be fine" - they are NOT a beginners species, and never will be. They are fast, nervous, aggressive when disturbed, and posess a medically significant venom.
If a friend of mine wanted a T and asked me about a P regalis I'd ask him to think again - so the same applies to Si. :)

Here are a few genuine accounts of P regalis bites:

In May 2002 I was putting sub adult female 3" Poecilotheria Ornata into a larger enclosure that she grew out of. when she decided to bolt out of the container and landed on my hand, I flinched alittle (natural reaction) she got defensive and then sank her fangs into my lower thumb palm side (meaty area there), she then ran into her new enclosure (go figure) if she hadnt done that I think I would have squashed her out of anger but anyway. the area of the bite gotten painful. I sealed the lid went to kitchen washed the area then I went to living room and laid down on the couch and by now the adrenaline was rushing, I was sweating really good. by a half an hour of lying down. The pain went from bite to my elbow. hour went by thats when I started to vomit. for around 3 hours still nauseated I started to feel abit feverish with chills. I fell asleep woke up in the morning. completely still nauseated and had shortness of breath. My wife went to the store and bought me dramamine (they didnt work) took percacets (which I had from an injury at work) the pain subsided, for 2 weeks I was always nauseated (like car sickness) I rode it out I guess until venom passed out of my system i felt better but all I can say is DO NOT GET BITTEN BY AN ADULT FEMALE, she can mess you up bad. If I was bitten by a an adult I probably would have been laid up in a hospital for awhile or even worse go into a coma from high fever. Right now as I speak I feel no ill effects from the bite

Thanks for this account... A good friend who runs a prominent local herp-store got nailed by a small P. fasciata a few years ago and had similar symptoms, although I think he managed to avoid vomiting.

He did continue to have muscle spasms (very painful) in that arm and actually twitching all through that side of his body (evidence of a full lateral systemic reaction to the toxin) for almost a year thereafter.

What I worry about are less informed people buying these things from pet stores or even online (you can't be sure everyone understands or heeds the warnings). It's only going to take one highly publicized death to rid us of our highly enjoyable spiders. And from the sound of it, Pokie venom is almost strong enough to kill even healthy adults.

I have just been had by a regalis, about 4 inch in legspan. Trying to re- organise its tank and it cought me on my little finger on my left hand. First bite in 11 years in this hobby. the sensation at first was a sharp (hot feeling) pain in the finger, although not enough to throw the T across the room, if you get what i mean. It hurt as though pins'n'needles were going through the finger. It bled for a few minutes but that did not last long. All i feel now, 25 minutes later is a strong, yet mildy painful pins an needles feeling. My finger has swollen a little but not a great deal and it seems to be the tophalf of the finger that is infected by this sensation. I can no longer type with that finger. I feel excited and curious at this event, the size and temperature of my digit seems to have increased and it is still throbbing with the pins and needle effect."

The following day:
Well i am still here.
I went to bed just after writing my initial post and the girlfreind took away some of the pain :). (Can't have pain without pleasure).
When it happend my finger did swell a little but that has gone now, although there is a little redness on the finger. It is tender to touch but feels stiff when i move it. Apart from that i have had no other effects. I am guesing that venom was injected because of the sensation i felt in my finger, if there was no venom i would imagine that it would have the same effect as sticking a pin in it, but this tingled (Painfully) and throbbed. No other parts of tmy body was effected. It was an unusual feeling, quite difficult to describe. I should also mention that i had a few glasses of wine so no doubt the alcohol would have subdued the pain and maybe even counteracted with any venom. Who knows?

4 days later:
If you recall I mentioned that I was bitten by a 4 inch regalis last week and reported no particular problems other than a sore finger, of which the discomfort is slowly disappearing. I have now noticed one or 4 other things. Now whether they are related to this bite I simply don't know, only those who have been bitten before maybe able to comment. 2 nights ago approximately 24 hours after the bite my right calf muscle seized for approx. 5 minutes. I put this down to a simple muscle cramp. (Had them before but not for a few years). At approx. 6am in the morning I had another in the same leg. Now this got me thinking if it was related to the T bite. That day I seemed very tired, exhausted and wanted to sleep, but I plodded on. The next day, still tired I finished work at 12pm dozed on the sofa and at around 3pm I got the same cramp, only this time in my left calf, later that day a muscle in my lower jaw temporarily seized during a yawn.

I have never had so many muscle cramps/seizures in such a short space of time. I was wandering if anyone else who has suffered bites, particularly a poke has experienced the same or similar? I know someone mentioned that someone had but I forget the name.

Don't mean to bore you with this but I do know that there are peoples out there collecting this sort of info. And I thought I might be worth mentioning, but again I cannot say if it were related to the bite. Both Calf muscles are still sore, but WOW!! what a few days I have had.

(Referring to a young boy)
He was feeding a baby regalis (about 2.5"), and he got a little too close (apparently the spider mistook his thumb for food). It held on for 20-30 seconds. After that, he took benadryl and laid down for a nap (it was in the morning that the bite occured). He didn't wake up until that evening... He could hardly walk (walked like granny), knees were stiff, chest was tight, breathing heavily. He went to the doctor (at the insistance of others, he didn't really want to go). They didn't really have any idea what to do, so they flushed his system with two or three bags of saline. The kept him overnight for observation, but there were no effects after that evening.

I was bit by a 5"+ Poecilotheria striata while I was taking some of the substrate out of the jar I was temporarily keeping it in (around 5pm). I accidentally touched its leg and she ran straight to the top of the jar. I quickly tried to cover the jar with my hand but like all Poecilotheria species she was so fast she ran onto my hand and the second she got on my hand she sunk her fangs in-on the top of my left hand right my pointer and middle knuckle. She stayed on my hand for about 15-20 seconds then I flung her off my hand back into the jar. The bite felt like a bee sting but about 50 times worse. About 20 minutes later my hand swelled up twice its size but the pain wasn't that bad.
Half an hour after that I started to get an immense burning feeling in the top of my hand and in the middle of my palm but the swelling started to go down. As time went by the pain traveled to my fingers and into my wrist and I had a tingling/painful stream going straight up my arm going into my chest.
I started to get really tired and almost passed out but I kept myself awake.
About 5 hours after I was bitten the pain in my hand became unbearable. It felt like I had a red hot knife going straight through the middle of my hand and my fingers felt like they were smashed with hammers. I took benadryl among other things so I could try to sleep through the pain. The pain was so
intense that it wouldn't let me sleep. I finally passed out around 7 in the morning. When I woke up around 1pm the pain was easily ignorable so I thought the worst was over. About 5 hours later I was at work and my legs started to get sore. After a while all my muscles got sore and I was walking like I was 95 years old and I started getting minor cramps in my calves. I got home about 9pm and went straight to bed. Shortly after I started getting cramps in my feet that were ridiculously painful and the joints in my hands and knees were sore. The rest of the night I would wake up to these painful cramps taking turns in all my muscles up and down my body from my feet muscles straight up to my jaw muscles (every single muscle in my body went
through these cramps-I'm not exaggerating). My jaw muscles clenched shut and I couldn't open my mouth for about 10 minutes.

Around 11am the next morning I was paralyzed for about 2+ hours. Any time I would move any part of my
body it would immediately cramp up. Once the cramps stopped I could hardly move because my muscles were so sore and if I moved my arms, legs, feet... in certain directions they would cramp so I had to move carefully. By that night I was still getting cramps but they weren't as painful or frequent.

For the next two weeks I was still getting cramps in my legs and pain in my hands and joints. I also noticed that I lost some muscle mass in my chest.
Then I woke up and my left shoulder joint was in intense pain.

After two weeks of still having symptoms from the bite and the feeling that I was melting away and now with this pain in my shoulder I decided to go to the doctor. I happen to know a Doctor from India (where the Mysore Ornamental is
from) who worked in India and treated many tarantula and snake bites.
He put me on steroids and pain killers and ran a bunch of blood tests. Now I am fine but occasionally get cramps in my legs and hands.

Grammostola rosea : No visible symptoms

Pterinochilus murinus : Swelling and pain in several days

Poecilotheria fasciata : Severe pain, numbness, respitory difficulties and sometimes cardiac failure. Local or total paralysys of the bitten limb. The venom attacks neuromusculare and causes tetanus. These symptoms lasts for 1-2 days but can return under 2-4 weeks.

Poecilotheria ornata : Similar to P. fasciata-bite but even more serious. Its been told that coma has occured after a bite with a paralyses during 2 weeks.

Theraphosa blondi : Intensive pain, miscoloraion of the hand where the bite took. The pain lasted 1-2 days. The mechanical damage wasnt too bad.

Poecilotheria seem to be the most dangerous genus, as a bite may involve a coma (a two day coma has been reported recently!).

The more commonly symptoms of a serious bite are :

- An immediate serious local pain after the bite.
- Stiffness and great difficulty to move the bitten member.
- An intense burning feeling covering all the thorax.
- Cardiac distress (often reported in case of a Stromatopelma bite).
- Cramps in calfs, and adductors at night for approximatively eight days.
- Pain generally still exists one month after the bite and even more in a few cases.

Poecilotheria bites are NOT exaggerated and DO NOT always result in mild or no symptoms. Poecs have neurotoxic venom and can produce lateral or bilateral systemic reactions (muscle fasciculations, severe cramping, nausea, weakness, dizziness, vomiting, tachycardia and irregular heartbeat). A close friend of mine was nailed by a small P. rufilata a few years ago and apart from the symptoms above, he experienced severe cramping on that whole side of his body for weeks, and even months after. These bite reports aren't faked and aren't to be taken lightly. Anyone keeping Poecilotheria MUST BE MADE AWARE of their potentially dangerous venom. Nature made these suckers brightly colored for a reason.

I ask that you all read the above post very carefully. It won't take you long.

I don't ever like to sensationalise the "danger factor" of keeping tarantulas, but if there is a species known for it's POTENTIAL danger then I will point it out. This is the first time Poecilotheria have been mentioned in any great detail in this thread, so now seems a good time to cover their venom.
 
That makes very interesting reading. I can already see how addictive this hobby is, I think I'd also like to get a Red Knee and maybe with a little more experience a tree dweller. However, I don't think I could ever own anything as potentially dangerous as one of those Indian Ornamentals.

I don't know how it compares to a spider bite, but I got stung by a nasty jellyfish while in Bali last summer. It stung like hell and although I seemed alright they still took me to hospital and gave me anti-venom and painkillers.
 
Well in all the excitement of everyone getting new T's, I almost forgot to say that Louis moulted on Saturday morning. He has grown a fair amount and is now well over an inch long. I haven't had a chance to properly measure him yet though.

He was TOTALLY seethrough when I woke up yesterday morning. All I could see was his old skin. Took a minute or two to realise that he was sitting right next to it. Couldn't get any pics though because he was obviously very soft. Got him to come out of his tube web for the first time today to get some snaps for you all.

Louis19.jpg


Louis20.jpg


Just for a size scale to show how big (or small) he is.
Louis21.jpg


You can really see how metallic he is on this pic. I'm really pleased, he's gorgeous :)
Louis22.jpg
 
It's been moulting time chez Mugabe as well - I tore open his burrow to find one shed exuvium - it was rather dry and crumpled so I'm guessing he shed some time yesterday. Usambaras are so secretive, it's hard to know the exact time.

All I knew is he was coming up to moult time - slow reactions, sealed his lair up, loss of appetite and swollen abdomen.

His legs are now far longer than before, although actual total amount of growth isn't anywhere like what Miguel is going through at the moment. This isn't surprising, because he doesn't eat very much.

He's certainly far larger than Idi now anyway.

Mugabe29


Mugabe30


For scale, the tank is 9 inches wide

Mugabe31


So forget what I said earlier, he's grown a substantial amount! :eek:
 
Originally posted by DirtyMinx
Sabbz : Marcelo is soo tiny! even after his moult lol, has he grown a lot?

Yeah he has grown quite a bit, it's a bit of a rubbish picture tbh but it was the best I could do. He's about 1.5 times the size when he's not all squished up like that :)
 
WOOHOO!!! Finally Rio's moulted. I threatened her with eviction this morning if she didn't moult and it looks like she heeded my warnings and flipped over at 10am.

First off she just lay there, motionless for about an hour. Suddenly I noticed her legs moving about, and peered into her tank to see she was slowly shuffling out of her skin. The first sight I got was her mahoosive fangs, and I thought 'oh my, we have a biggun here'
Rio41.JPG


She continued shuffling and pumping her legs about. I could see her abdomen pulsing and wriggling out of it's old skin. Quite amazing really. Look at the size of those fangs... erk!
Rio54.JPG


Eventually she got out, did her stretches and flipped over. She looks like a big tangle of legs when she's all hunched up.
Rio61.JPG


And this is one I've just taken. She's laid there all stretched out, almost as if she is sunbathing. She's darkened quite a lot since this morning.
Rio65.JPG


Acanthoscurria geniculata is supposed to be a fast-growing species. These two skins say it all really. I don't know how she managed to fit in her old skins.
Rio67.JPG
 
Eeek! Don't like te look of those fangs!:eek: Almost as scary as my dissertation.

She's really coloured up well hasn't she, looks gorgeous now.
 
I'd be wondering about things like that. I've seen Shiva sitting still and then like stretching out her legs, I also saw her do some weird bobbing up and down thing.

I've also been looking at every care sheet I can to find out how long it takes for a G.Rosea to reach maturity. Am I right in thinking its going to take about 2 years?
 
Originally posted by Nexus
I'd be wondering about things like that. I've seen Shiva sitting still and then like stretching out her legs, I also saw her do some weird bobbing up and down thing.

I've also been looking at every care sheet I can to find out how long it takes for a G.Rosea to reach maturity. Am I right in thinking its going to take about 2 years?
2 years at least! Rosie's are quite slow growers. My emilia is also a slow grower and could apparently take up to 5 years to mature. It all depends on the animal, and how much you feed it etc.

Originally posted by Repo
What does it mean when they rub all the legs on one side together? Is it like grooming? :confused:

Yes, they're having a wash :) All of mine do it regularly. Sometimes it looks as though they're eating their feet :D
 
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