The Tarantula Keeper's Guide: Comprehensive Information on Care, Housing, and Feeding

By Stanley A. Schultz and Marguerite J. Schultz

Terrarium hobbyists and arachnid lovers will rejoice at this comprehensive guide on tarantulas! The Tarantula Keeper's Guide provides in-depth information on their biology and advice on housing and caring for pet tarantulas.

Tarantulas are small and easy-to-maintain exotic pets that are fun and captivating to watch. The Tarantula Keeper's Guide includes detailed information on the natural history and biology of these fascinating creatures. This spider book is filled with color photos, scientifically accurate line art, and detailed care instructions. It's no wonder that The Tarantula Keeper's Guide is considered the "Bible of Arachnoculture" by hobbyists and arachnid enthusiast!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Sourcebooks
• Release date: Jan 1, 2009
• ISBN: 9781438067575

Book preview

Preface

"What the reader now holds is an interim report of the state of the art of keeping tarantulas as pets."

Thus began the preface for the last edition. And it was proven to be a sage proclamation indeed, for we now find ourselves amidst another midcourse correction. This is extremely good news, for it strongly suggests that the practice of arachnoculture is developing rapidly. This bespeaks a strong interest and a bright future for both the enthusiasts and the creatures that they are so enthusiastic about.

As the science and hobby of arachnoculture advances, more and more information accumulates, and to report all of it would have required a volume several times the size of the present work. Regrettably, to make room for the new data several large sections had to be omitted.

But there is good news as well. With the experience gained by enthusiasts, a few common threads can be recognized in arachnoculture. One of the more significant is described under Five Paths to Nirvana beginning on page 239.

There is more good news. As arachnoculture progresses, more and more new species are being found and introduced to the hobby, and more and more enthusiasts are learning how to breed their valued pets. Thus, there is justifiable hope that the very limited wild populations of some species (e.g., Avicularia versicolor) will no longer be exploited, and that the captive-bred populations will serve as safety nets in case the wild populations are extinguished by natural calamity or human interference.

This edition of The Tarantula Keeper’s Guide parted somewhat from previous editions by inviting other enthusiasts to display their photographic handiwork. These people are listed under Photo Credits on page ii. Without their remarkable expertise in both photography and arachnoculture this book would not be the reference it has become, and we would like to express our gratitude for their support. All illustrations not otherwise credited are by the authors.

Dr. Wei Xiang Dong is to be highly commended for his patience and expertise in the preparation and photography of the scanning electron micrographs. Without his uncanny ability to manipulate and cajole the often recalcitrant machines, these remarkable photographs could not have been made.

We would like to express our thanks to Carolyn Swagerle and her husband, Tim, for their interest and help in this project.

Dr. Robert Gale Breene III must be given special thanks for his help with the manuscript. Without it this book would have been just another mediocre book on tarantulas instead of the reference that it is.

Again, as in the previous edition, Rick C. West must be gratefully thanked for his help with many of the technical details.

One other person, Susanne Sheppard, was of inestimable help in preparing this Guide. Susanne sacrificed a week of her time to help with proofreading the galley proofs. Without her proofreading skills and assistance this work might have been well nigh unreadable!

Last, but by far not least, we must recognize Dr. John E. Remmers for all he has done, directly and indirectly, to make this book the very best possible.

There are many others who directly or indirectly through their participation in the hobby and on the various Internet forums and message boards helped with this work. There simply isn’t room to list them all. Every one of these people has reason to be proud of their participation and contribution to this pioneering hobby. Our hats are off to you all!

The authors feel compelled to issue a warning about the scientific names used in this book. Every effort has been made to use the correct names in the text and the illustrations. But the reader is cautioned that errors can be made and that the names of these creatures occasionally change. The reader should not assume that all the names used are perfectly accurate, and if there is any doubt, confirmation should be made with other, independent sources.

The authors have established a web page dedicated to this edition of The Tarantula Keeper’s Guide where an addendum and errata sheet will be posted as well as other ancillary information. The reader is encouraged to visit that web page for the latest updates. See page 359 for more information.

The authors appreciate comments and questions by readers. Any readers who wish to communicate are encouraged to contact us through either the publisher or the American Tarantula Society.

Stanley A. Schultz

Marguerite J. Schultz

Calgary, Alberta, Canada

August 12, 2008

Introduction

The Mythical, Mystical Tarantula

There is something mysterious about tarantulas. They startle people. They are creatures of the night, magically appearing and then disappearing into the dark again. They have long, fuzzy legs and appear huge and forbidding. They walk in a strange, mechanical, almost robotic fashion. But foremost, they are spiders!

Because of this, it is natural that superstitious folk should credit them with all sorts of sinister properties. And where reason doesn’t exist, myth runs rampant. As a result, tarantula lore is a very fertile field.

The very name tarantula is a double misnomer. There is a spider, belonging to a very distantly related group (a wolf spider, family Lycosidae), that became notorious during the fifteenth century. This spider, named for the Italian town of Taranto (Tarantum to people of the Renaissance), is credited with causing a strange disease called tarantism (Gertsch, 1979). By legend, the bite of this spider was blamed for the disease, and anyone having been bitten was obliged, as the only cure, to engage in a frenzied, feverish dance, a tarantella.

Now, several centuries later, and in more reasonable, moderate times, authorities strongly suspect that the tarantella was merely an excuse for some limited revelry in a time when fun was ruthlessly suppressed.

As a result of the superstition concerning tarantism, any large spider was suspect and much feared by the peasantry. As Renaissance explorers probed the far reaches of the world, they would return with fearsome tales of giant spiders, tarantulas, throughout the tropics, subtropics, and warmer temperate zones. Gradually, English-speaking people, especially North Americans, applied this name to a group of much larger and more spectacular spiders than the wolf spiders of southern Europe, forgetting almost entirely about Taranto and tarantism. This myth of large, dangerous spiders still persists even today.

Europeans, however, often refer to our tarantulas as mygale or Vogelspinnen (singular: Vogelspinne), saving the term tarantula for the original wolf spider.

The name Mygale is also a mistake. It was first used by a prominent naturalist, Baron Georges Cuvier, to name a small mammal that, though quite different, resembles a mouse. However, another prominent biologist, Baron Charles Walckenaer, applied it independently in 1797 to describe those huge, fuzzy spiders that were caught in the tropics, presumably because—at first sight—they brought to mind those mammals. Thus, the entire group of spiders became known as Mygalomorphae, the mouselike ones. But, because the name had been used previously for the mammals, it was invalid as a name for the spiders. Arachnologists did, however, retain the name Mygalomorphae (mygalomorph spiders or merely mygalomorphs in the vernacular) for the major group of spiders that includes, among others, purse web spiders, trapdoor spiders, and our tarantulas.

In 1699, an aristocratic Swiss lady by the name of Madame Maria Sibylla Mérian took a Caribbean cruise to Surinam, in South America. A trip such as hers was fraught with much danger. In this period, the Caribbean Islands and South America were thought to be quite primitive and uncivilized. Pirates were all too common, malaria and yellow fever were ever-present dangers, and the face of the moon was better known than the forests of South America. Worse yet, Madame Mérian took no gentleman escort. She was accompanied only by her daughter, Dorothea Maria. Ladies of stature did not go running off to such wild, barbarous places, especially dragging their children along! Their obligation was in the home with their husband and family, or attending proper social functions. Madame Mérian, however, was one of those uppity women with a mind of her own.

Madame Mérian published several accounts of her travels, the first in 1705 (Mérian, 1705) and the last appearing posthumously in 1771 (Mérian, 1771). Her excursion gained her profuse notoriety and her reports considerable rebuke. She suffered particularly vicious verbal abuse because she had the unmitigated audacity to publish an engraving of a tarantula eating a small bird. For the zoologists of the day, this was unthinkable heresy. Spiders, according to prevalent scientific belief, most definitely did not eat vertebrates! As a result, she was publicly denounced. Not until 1863 did anyone of scientific authority actually confirm that under some circumstances at least, some tarantulas do eat birds (Bates, 1863). Madame Mérian was vindicated and a radical, new concept was bestowed upon us.

Tarantulas Are Very Complex Creatures

Their biology and natural history are not straight-line entities, but rather an interconnected and inter-reacting mesh work.

While the authors have tried to organize this discussion in some logical order, that complexity has made the effort extremely difficult. Frequent cross references are given throughout the text, but their insertion had to be minimized to enhance readability.

If readers are confused by, or interested in some term or subject, their first reaction should be to consult the index for alternate explanations or definitions.

This is almost surely the origin of the names birdeater and bird spider in English, and Vogelspinne in German. Unfortunately, these names have given people the impression that tarantulas must be fed birds, a wholly untrue and preposterous concept.

An illustration from an old text is reproduced here as an example of the fascination that science and the laity had with these incredible spiders. To this day, tabloid newspapers, pet dealers, and circus sideshows alike attempt to amaze prospective patrons with their bird-eating spiders.

For now we will simply state that what we mean by the term tarantula is a collection of more than nine hundred kinds of extremely large, fuzzy spiders that usually live either in burrows in the ground or high in trees, and leave a more precise definition for The Name of the Tarantula (page 61).

Woodcut engraving of a tarantula eating a dead bird.

The laity often confuses tarantulas with the widow spiders and the malmignatte of southern Europe, thus enhancing the myth. Even worse, there are a few kinds of tarantulas and some of their close allies that possess medically significant bites (Bucherl et al., 1968–1971; Maratic, 1967), thus adding fuel to the fire. Medically significant bites will be discussed more fully on page 192.

Tarantulas have also received a lot of bad press in the movies. Many movies and television programs starring such noted actors as Sean Connery, The Three Stooges, Harrison Ford, and William Shatner, have featured tarantulas as dangerous to humans or menaces to civilization. The Tarantula That Ate Tokyo is a long-standing joke among horror-movie buffs. The fact is that these movies play with the ignorance and fears passed on for generations by unenlightened people. Nobody would pay to see the movie The Beagle That Ate Boston since everybody knows what a beagle really is. Few know tarantulas as well.

Almost every property attributed to tarantulas by these movies is in direct contradiction to reality. Although such movies may be recommended as entertainment, they must also be recommended as detailed accounts of what tarantulas are not.

The following story, recounted by William Baerg and concerning a prevalent disease of horses in Mexico, illustrates the magnitude of the ignorance and superstition of rural folk regarding tarantulas.

The tarantula climbs over the hoof, cuts off the hair in a narrow strip surrounding the leg. If allowed to do this undisturbed, no damage results. [In another version the damage comes incidental to the cutting of the hair.] If disturbed, the tarantula bites and this is followed by the loss of the hoof. It is believed that the spiders use the hair thus acquired in the construction of a nest. According to other variations of the legend the loss of the hoof is caused by the urine of the spider, mierda de araña, also by the excreta de araña. (Baerg, 1938b)

In truth, the condition is probably brought on by allowing casual scratches on the horses’ legs to become soiled with mud contaminated with urine, feces, and a bacterium, Bacillis necrophorus, during wet weather. This bacterium is known to infect minor cuts and scratches in these circumstances, causing a condition similar to that described by legend.

Indeed, many common people in rural Mexico call the tarantula hierba, meaning weed, and mata-caballo, meaning horse killer (Baerg, 1929).

Will the Real Tarantula Please Stand Up?

The real tarantula is a melange of surprises. Forget all those absurd stories. The real tarantula is far more bizarre, far more fantastic.

Tarantulas have their roots buried in the mists of time. We simply don’t know in what strange primeval forests, swamps, or veldts they originated. They arose from a stock of animals that split from the more familiar branches of the animal kingdom more than half a billion years ago. We have only a few haunting clues to trace their evolution.

Their forebearers evolved along a path that, though intricately intertwined with the rest of life on Earth, has remained distinctly different and unique. Their anatomies are outlandishly unconventional, their physiologies unexpectedly complex, their lifestyles bizarre in the extreme. They chose to do it their way, and they have succeeded admirably.

As with most other spiders, most tarantulas aren’t especially aggressive, dangerous, or dreadful. In fact, many of them will become docile enough to allow children to pick them up and handle them freely. And, once picked up properly, many of the remainder will submit to being held, once in the hand. The enthusiast is urged to read Personal Contact—One-on-One on page 184 before attempting this, however.

They produce virtually no noise, no smell, no mess. They do not come home with a litter of young every few months, shed hair on the sofa, track mud into the parlor, or leave dead mice on your back porch. They exist in a very special world, accepting life for what it is, expecting little more than a few crickets a month.

Therein lies the real mystery. So astoundingly different when first encountered, these creatures seem familiar once we overcome our initial astonishment and apprehension. What are they, really?

It is hoped that as this book is read, that question will be answered and their real value appreciated.

Once and for all, then—

Tarantulas do not ravish fair maidens!

Tarantulas do not cause tarantism!

Tarantulas do not embalm people or towns!

And lastly, tarantulas did not eat Tokyo!

Tarantulas are the fall guys. Misnamed, falsely accused, slandered, and convicted without a trial, these giants of the spider world still persist, oblivious to it all, waiting at the mouths of their burrows only for another beetle.

Fortunately, we are learning. There is still hope.

PART I

Jump Start

Somehow you’ve acquired a tarantula but haven’t the foggiest idea of how to care for it. You need help badly, but where can you go for help? There are several obvious approaches to this problem. For instance, you can go to a pet store for advice, but there is a fundamental problem with that strategy—it is extremely doubtful that you will be able to get all the information you’ll need in one brief encounter with their personnel, much less be able to remember it until you can get home again!

Then there is the Internet. But you soon find that there are almost as many divergent opinions about caring for your tarantula as there are people with opinions. Which is correct? Surely they can’t all be! And, the information to be had on the ‘Net is almost always far too fractured and fragmentary to make any real sense to the novice.

Another obvious solution is to read a good book on tarantulas. Books present a subject in an ordered structure. The subject matter is easier to comprehend and remember, and it is easier for readers to perceive relationships and make valid deductions.

Books also tend to present complete sets of information, not merely disjunct bits and pieces. Thus, the reader can be reasonably assured that little or nothing of importance is missing in the factual matter.

Books also have tables of contents and indexes. A table of contents is a road map to the subject matter of a book and an index is analogous to a hyperspace jump or an Internet link, allowing the reader to jump to widely separated passages of text that contain related material. By using these effectively, different aspects of the same subject and similar aspects of different subjects can be easily explored.

Lastly, books are always on your shelf, to be consulted without having to call or run to the pet shop, or boot your computer. One would hope that’s why you’re now holding this one.

Chapter One

Read This First—

The Game Plan

As We Begin

Although it is possible for novices to read this chapter alone and set up an adequate cage for a newfound pet, it is all too probable that they will miss some important aspect and may jeopardize their pets; and they will most certainly have missed learning all they should to fully appreciate these amazing creatures. Thus we strongly urge the novice, once the new pet is safely caged and cared for, to read the remainder of this book.

Before going any further you must understand that tarantulas are vastly different from any other pet you’ve ever had. They have completely different requirements, respond completely differently to the challenges of living, and react completely differently to their surroundings. They have a completely different anatomy than anything you’ve ever seen or heard of before. Do we detect a pattern developing here?

You cannot make any assumptions about what is good and what is bad for them. You must start with the barest essentials and gradually work your way up the list to a full understanding of their requirements and characteristics. But, even those bare essentials are unconventional, and our full understanding is almost surely rudimentary and incomplete.

You’re on the very steepest part of the learning curve so there’ll be questions and principles you might not immediately understand. If things get a little tough, just keep plodding ahead. It’ll get a lot easier as you progress, and that will happen very soon.

Welcome Home!

Do not unpack the tarantula at first. Put it, still in its box or shipping container, in a safe place away from heat (e.g., radiators, hot air registers, or the sun) or cold. Don’t bother the tarantula! Don’t try to show it to friends or family members. Don’t even open the container to check on it. You need to read what follows before you do anything more with it.

For the Record

While it’s still fresh in your mind, write down everything that you can remember that you were told about the tarantula. Especially important are its common and scientific names if these were given to you. Additional important information might also include the continent or country of origin and its presumed native habitat (e.g., desert, rain forest, savanna). Also record any instructions you were given for its care.

If necessary, you may want to call the person or store where you got your tarantula to get further information, like the place of origin and the correct spelling of the names. Don’t be afraid to ask to speak to the manager or owner to get the most authoritative information.

TIP

Don’t try to cut corners when setting up for your tarantula—you could endanger your pet.

You should also ask where this information was derived from. If it came with the tarantula from their supplier, it could be important. If the pet shop personnel found it on the Internet, the information should be viewed as extremely dubious at best. If you get more than one version, copy them all down and label them Version A, Version B, Version C, and so on. You may be pleasantly surprised to find out that one is actually correct!

Sorting It All Out

We need to answer some serious questions so we will know how to proceed.

1.  Is your new tarantula a baby with a leg span of less than approximately one and a half inches (four centimeters)? (A leg span is the tip of one front leg to the tip of the back leg on the opposite side.)

a.  Yes. Go to The Babies on page 253.

b.  No, it’s larger. Go to 2.

2.  Are you 99 percent certain you know what kind it is?

a.  Yes. Go to Five Paths to Nirvana on page 239.

b.  No. Go to The Generic Cage below.

The Generic Cage

Now you need to set up a cage that will sustain the tarantula for a few days until you can either confirm that you were given its correct name or determine its true identity. Here we describe setting up the most basic tarantula cage. Little or no explanation is given for our specifications. That will come later. The goal now is to get the tarantula into a cage that will sustain it while you are brought up to speed about these remarkable creatures. For that you will need the following items:

Cage. Good choices are a plastic pet cage or a small aquarium. For most tarantulas these should have a capacity between 2½ and 5½ gallons (9½ to 21 liters). Under no circumstances should you choose one larger than about ten gallons (thirty-eight liters) except perhaps for the adults of the very largest, giant tarantulas. (A table of recommended cage sizes for tarantulas is presented on page 131.)

Another, though somewhat less attractive, alternative would be a plastic shoe box from a department store. For average-sized tarantulas choose one about fourteen inches by seven inches and about five inches high (thirty-five by eighteen by twelve centimeters).

Be certain that you choose one with a secure cover. You will have to melt about a dozen ventilation holes around the sides of the shoe box toward the top but still low enough that the cover doesn’t block them. Use a medium-sized nail heated on the kitchen stove that will produce holes about one-eighth inch (three millimeters) in diameter. Use a pair of pliers to hold the nail. Note that using too large a nail, and thereby producing holes that are too large, will allow feeder crickets to escape before they can be consumed by the tarantula. It is perhaps better to make smaller holes and more of them.

TIP

We suggest that you do not set up the tarantula’s cage according to the instructions from the pet shop. For the time being, follow only these instructions. Later, you will be prompted to gain more information from other sources like those itemized under Resources on page 359.

Secure Cover. We cannot stress this point strongly enough! Be absolutely certain that you get an absolutely secure, absolutely escape-proof cover for this cage.

Do not attempt to make your own cover at this point. If the cage doesn’t already possess one, buy a commercial cover that fits properly. The cover should be made of hot-dipped, galvanized wire mesh (sometimes called hardware cloth or chicken wire) with openings between about one-eighth and one-quarter inch (three and six millimeters) wide.

Substrate. Basically this is analogous to bedding used with mammals. Either of two different products are acceptable.

Shredded Coconut Husk. This product under a number of different commercial names is rather new on the market. It is rapidly becoming the favorite of many because it is readily available from most pet shops, and it performs acceptably. Either follow the directions on the package or merely drop the compressed brick into a bucket of about three quarts (three liters) of lukewarm tap water. Allow it to soak for an hour or more as necessary. Then wring it out to remove as much water as possible.

Shredded coconut husk in the compressed brick form expands when wet to about six to eight times its dry volume. If you don’t need the entire brick, merely use a handsaw to cut off a portion and soak it in a proportional amount of water.

Peat or Potting Soil from landscaping and horticultural suppliers, a floral or garden shop, or a department store will also work well. Read the contents label carefully. Avoid any that advertise added pesticides, fertilizers, wood or lumber by-products. Perlite and vermiculite additives are acceptable, however. Choose a large enough package to produce a layer of soil 2 to 3 inches (5 to 7½ cm) deep over the entire floor of the cage while the soil is still fluffy (not yet tamped down).

Water Dish. Any container about the size and shape of a standard tuna fish can will work for typical tarantulas. Enthusiasts have used jar lids, ash trays, mini-ramekins, very small, pet water dishes, and the bottoms cut from sixteen ounce (five-hundred-milliliter) plastic soda bottles, among other things. Acquire a chip of slate or a small pebble.

Mini-ramekins make excellent water dishes for tarantulas. Note especially the elongated rock as an escape ramp for the crickets. Brachypelma emilia.

TIP

When manipulating the tarantula, the novice is strongly urged to move everything to the floor and work there. THIS IS NOT A MISPRINT! Should the tarantula attempt to bolt for freedom a fall of more than its leg span could kill it. It’s much safer near the floor.

For a few of the faster moving tarantulas, even experienced aficionados perform these procedures in the bathroom. Read Dealing With The Mavericks on page 191.

This should be large enough that it protrudes a little above the water’s surface, but small enough that the tarantula will still be able to drink around it. It goes into the water dish with the water.

Putting It All Together

1.   Wash the cage with mild dish detergent and rinse it well. Heroic efforts to sanitize or sterilize the cage are not necessary. Simple is better. Pour enough of the shredded coconut husk, peat, or potting soil into the cage to make a fluffy layer about two or three inches (five centimeters) thick. Then tamp it firmly into a more or less solid pad. In the end it should be a firm pad about an inch or a little more (2½ to 3 centimeters) thick. It is better if the substrate is slightly damp at first, but no special effort should be made to make it especially moist. In a few days it will dry out completely anyway.

2.  Wash the water dish and rinse it well. Heroic efforts to sanitize or sterilize the water dish are not necessary. Simple is better. Set it in the cage toward one corner. Recessing it slightly into the substrate so the tarantula can find the water more easily is desirable but not absolutely necessary. Place the pebble or slate chip into the dish. Some portion of rock should protrude above the water’s surface. Fill the dish with water. It is not necessary to use special, expensive, or exotic types of water. Any drinking water safe for you is acceptable. Simple is better.

3.  Put the tarantula in its cage. This may be as simple as carefully opening the box, turning it on its side, and setting it in one end of the cage opposite the water dish. Leave it there for the tarantula to exit at its leisure. Do not make any effort to remove the tarantula from its box unless you are afraid that the presence of the box poses a significant hazard.

If the box is too big to fit into the cage, you may have to forcibly remove the tarantula from the box yourself. Carefully tip the box over so the opening is at the side. Use a transparent, glass or plastic, drinking glass. Carefully slide the glass into the box and over the tarantula. When the spider is securely inside the glass, slowly remove the glass and cover its opening with a convenient piece of cardboard (a file card works well). Set the glass on its side in the tarantula cage and leave it there for the tarantula to exit at its leisure.

It is not absolutely necessary that the tarantula leave either the box or the glass. If it refuses, leave it alone. It’ll do just fine.

4.  Install the cage cover. The exact technique will depend on the cage and cover style. Be advised that tarantulas are incredibly strong for their size and are easily capable of lifting a cover off in the middle of the night if the cover isn’t absolutely, firmly secured. If necessary, lash it down with a belt or rope, or weight it down with a heavy book. Plan on finding a more aesthetic means of securing it later.

5.  Place the cage in a warm, but not hot, part of your home, away from bright lights and undue commotion. Do not place it near a window or door. Do not place it where sunlight might strike it, or near a radiator or other heat source. Do not place it where it can be easily tipped over or knocked off a support by people passing by, by the family cat, or by inquisitive guests.

6.  Now go away and leave the tarantula alone! It needs a lot of peace and quiet to become accustomed to its new home.

One Last Issue

Do not feed the tarantula at least for the first week! Tarantulas can exist for weeks or months without food. There is no overriding reason to try to feed it before you tend to almost all other care issues, and there is one very good reason why you shouldn’t. Your new pet tarantula may require several days to become accustomed to its new quarters. Being stampeded by a dozen rowdy crickets will only terrorize the spider even more, prolonging the initial adjustment period. In the meantime, the crickets will only die of old age or improper care.

TIP

NEVER, EVER PICK UP A TARANTULA’S CAGE BY LIFTING ON THE COVER OR THOSE HANDLES. If the cage cover came with one or more small plastic handles, remove and destroy them at this time to forestall ever using them again. When lifting a tarantula cage, ALWAYS pick it up by the base.

Now that you have your tarantula safely in a cage that will both protect it and maintain it for several days to several weeks, you may progress to the next topic, trying to confirm what kind it is.

What Kind Is It, Really?

Confirming that the tarantula really is the kind that it was labeled when you got it or determining what kind it really is can be a daunting experience. Here we offer guidance on this important topic.

Why would the tarantula’s identity be so important? Because there are now more than nine hundred different kinds of tarantulas on the planet already described and named, and some experts would say at least that many or more are waiting to be found and described. And although they may be conveniently bunched into only a handful of different care regimens, there are many kinds that are relatively intolerant and will decline and die if cared for improperly.

Also, although tarantulas are not dangerously venomous, a few have medically significant bites (discussed on page 192) or other characteristics (see Those @#$%&# Bristles! on page 28) that you need to know about, both for your safety and the tarantula’s well-being.

Mug Shots

Beware! One of the surest ways of misidentifying your new tarantula is to try to identify it from a photo, so-called picture keying. Be very careful not to fall into this trap.

Tarantulas are exceptionally difficult to photograph because they work a lot like little black boxes, absorbing most light that strikes them. To display many of their subtle, distinguishing characteristics a photograph must often be greatly overexposed, thus obscuring or obliterating many of their more obvious features in a blaze of white, or skewing their appearance to mislead you.

Another major problem is that a remarkable number of tarantulas are best described as large, brown, hairy spiders. While they are distinct kinds, often originating in widely separated parts of the world, they look distressingly alike. To distinguish between many of these kinds the enthusiast must either be intimately familiar with them in the first place, or must rely heavily on an identification made by an experienced arachnologist from a preserved specimen. Trying to identify one of these from a photo is at least hopeless if not absurd. The best use, if not the only use, of picture keying might be to exclude obviously incorrect possibilities.

An additional, vexing complication for the enthusiast is that a distressing number of photos published in books and on the Internet are misidentified. Consider all such identifications to be extremely tentative unless they seem to be widely accepted, and even then you should retain some level of skepticism.

Lastly, the babies, juveniles (immatures), and adults of many kinds of tarantulas bear often striking colors and patterns that change as they grow and mature. The electric blue baby you are trying to identify now may be psychedelic pink-orange with a green carapace as an adult!

The Name of the Game

Scientific names can be extremely difficult for laypeople to understand and spell correctly, especially if they are new to the subject. Spelling errors are rife, and wrong identifications are the rule of the day. The pet industry has a particularly bad reputation in this regard. Assume that any scientific name that you were given is at best only a guess, and probably misspelled at that. Further, since scientific names are frequently transferred from person to person only by word of mouth in the pet industry, it is not uncommon for homonyms (unrelated words with approximately the same pronunciation) to be substituted for the correct names. Consider any scientific name to be a very tentative identification until verified by some independent, reputable source.

Many common names are fabricated with great whimsy and little attention to responsibility or appropriateness. If a tarantula in a pet shop or wholesale warehouse doesn’t sell, one of the surest ways to spur sales is to fabricate a different, more picturesque name. View any common names as possible clues to the tarantula’s true identity, but don’t take them too seriously until they are verified by some independent, knowledgeable source.

At this point you may want to jump to The Name of the Tarantula (page 61) for a detailed discussion of the problem.

Look in the Index. Search for both the scientific and the common names for the tarantula in this book. Remember that scientific and common names are often misspelled in both the pet industry and the hobby, so you may have to apply a little (or a lot!) of poetic license to get a proper match. If your tarantula is listed, go to the pages where it is discussed and read those sections carefully. Of necessity, only the more popular, representative or remarkable kinds are discussed. If your new pet isn’t listed here, all is not lost. Often, all the members of the same genus (the first word of any scientific name) require very nearly the same conditions and care. Go to the section describing similar tarantulas and read those sections.

‘Net Search. To know the correct name for your new tarantula you may have to perform a search on the Internet. (See Resources on page 359.)

Scientific names are often hopelessly mutilated by both the pet industry and less sophisticated enthusiasts. One extremely good source for the correct spelling is The World Spider Catalog (Platnick, 2008). Use your favorite web browser to search for either or both the genus (first word in the scientific name) or species (second word) name. If that produces no results, search for key syllables, or three- or four-letter portions of the scientific name.

Common names are equally problematic. If all you have is a common name, you may have to consult a dictionary for the correct spelling of some of the words in the name, or a large atlas for the correct spelling of country or district names that are used in the tarantula’s name. Then perform an Internet search using the corrected name. If that fails, try search strings using only one word of a complex name with the word tarantula, use alternate spellings (e.g., Usumbura, Usumbara, Usambara, or British and American spelling), or reorganize the words.

Once you have a likely candidate, perform a search of the Internet at large for that name and compare any photos you find with your tarantula. Keep in mind the discussion under Mug Shots on page 13, however. The American Tarantula Society’s message board (look under Resources on page 359) is a very good place to perform a search.

Once you find Internet sites that contain good quality photos with identifications that seem reasonable, be sure to bookmark them for future reference.

If You Still Can’t Figure Out What It Is. If you don’t have a proper scientific name or a reasonably accurate common name, you should contact one of the various enthusiast societies or one of the Internet forums for a best guess based on the name given when you acquired it, your best description, and whatever other information that may have been given you when you got the tarantula. Do you have a digital camera capable of making reasonable closeups? You can post a good photo or two on one of the Internet’s tarantula forums so others can help you with the identification.

Finally, Coming Up to Speed

Now that you are reasonably sure what kind of tarantula you have, you can make a reasonable guess of what type of cage and care regimen is appropriate. We offer an accompanying table to help you decide. Any genera or species not listed on this table probably could be safely kept as an arid species.

Next, the reader should read the general section titled Care and Maintenance beginning on page 126. This chapter provides a detailed, point-by-point discussion of caring for tarantulas. It’s a fair amount of reading, but these creatures are so extraordinarily different from more conventional pets that this background information is absolutely essential to prevent you from innocently killing it.

Lastly, the reader should go to the specific section dealing with the care regimen appropriate for the tarantula under consideration. Probably, you will be pleasantly surprised to find that the generic cage that you started with will work just fine.

Additional Considerations

New Kids on the Block

Be forewarned that this list is incomplete. At the writing of this book more than nine hundred species of tarantulas have been scientifically described, but because of the problems discussed under The Name of the Tarantula beginning on page 61, this number may actually be wrong by as much as a factor of two or more. There doubtlessly exist many more species that either haven’t been found or that simply aren’t yet recognized as separate species. (The flip side of the coin is that some of those nine hundred described species are actually duplicate names.) Among all these extra tarantulas there almost surely are some that aren’t listed in the table that should be, and there may even be an entirely new category to add. Only time will tell.

Knowing this, the reader must critically examine any new species both from the standpoint of its native habitat and from the way that other enthusiasts are maintaining it, to determine the care regimen that is appropriate. Ideally, the information offered in this book will help.

But you still need to read more complete books about them. The best ones at this writing are listed under Resources on page 359, and detailed information about them is itemized in the bibliography on page 362.

Before we set you free for your own exploration, you should know that there is a little joke among tarantula enthusiasts. It goes Like those potato chips, you can’t have just one. The hobby is infectious and addictive. You’ve been warned!

Keeping It Simple

The tendency among arachnoculturists is to complicate the care of their charges, seemingly as much as possible. This may be partly because of the amateur herpetological hobby, many members of which also keep tarantulas as pets. The last quarter of the twentieth century witnessed remarkable advances in herpetoculture, largely because of the application of modern technology to reptiles’ and amphibians’ care. The result is almost an overpopulation of spiny-tailed iguanas, bearded dragons, rat snakes, king snakes, boas, and pythons. When amateur herpetologists begin keeping tarantulas, they assume, a priori, that the same technology is required.

Thus, we find people maintaining their tarantulas with timer-controlled artificial lighting, specialized spectrum bulbs, thermostatically controlled cage heaters, automatic misters controlled by electronic hygrometers (relative humidity gauges), and other expensive gimmicks and gizmos of dubious value.

Another source of the phenomenon may have arisen simply because arachnid enthusiasts feel compelled to do something, anything, to make their pet tarantulas feel more at home, healthier, and happier; or they just feel a compelling need to interact more with their tarantulas. Thus, we see tarantulas’ cages with so many ornaments that the spider has almost no room to rest, with complex, exotic mixtures for substrate, and with trilevel cages with balconies and sitting rooms!

The developing arachnoculturist is forewarned: Tarantulas are not reptiles, birds, or tropical fish. While tarantulas are exceedingly complex creatures, they have very simple requirements. All these appurtenances are largely unnecessary and may even be harmful to the tarantula by introducing unforeseen hazards. At the very least they are needlessly expensive, and the tarantula will be vastly unimpressed.

Be patient. There is plenty of time to get to know these remarkable creatures before you need to start experimenting. At least until several tarantulas have been kept a year or more, the novice should follow the guidelines propounded in this book, taking full note of the underlying rationale. With that background and experience, in time, the developing aficionado can make informed judgments about the appropriateness of new, improved techniques and hardware.

Simple is better.

PART II

The Scientific Tarantula

Although these huge spiders have been known by primitive humans for tens of millennia, our science has recognized them for little more than two hundred and fifty years. Only now, after all these centuries, are we beginning to understand the basics of tarantula biology and natural history. Slowly, modern science is unraveling the mysteries of these phenomenal creatures, and what you read here, though based on fact, will be subject to both minor midcourse corrections and revolutionary upheavals as our understanding of them advances.

Chapter Two

The Physical Tarantula

Anatomy and Physiology

Tarantulas belong to a vast group of very successful animals called arthropods. Of the approximately ten to thirty million kinds of organisms on Earth (this estimate varies widely with the authority), more than 90 percent may be arthropods. No other group of animals on Earth boasts more kinds. Few boast more individuals.

Although no arthropods really seem conventional by our standards, one subdivision of that group, the arachnids, have developed such outlandish shapes, bizarre lifestyles, unorthodox physiologies, and exotic modes of reproduction that they seem to have evolved on an alien planet. The arachnids are arguably the most preposterous of a group of already outrageous organisms. The spiders, a further subdivision of that group, are no exception.

The truth is that they did evolve on this planet, as did we; and ultimately, lost far back in the mists of time, we probably share a common ancestor. All indications are that almost two-thirds of a billion years ago our family tree split. The arachnids, doing their own thing, took an evolutionary branch going in one direction, and our more immediate ancestors took a branch in another.

We tend to look at them from a very self-centered perspective, not necessarily a valid point of view. The question is really: Which line of evolution is more bizarre, ours or the spiders?

External Features

Exoskeleton. As with most other arthropods, tarantulas possess a hard shell or thick hide called an exoskeleton. The exoskeleton has been around for considerably longer than half a billion years. Its underlying principle is undeniably the most successful and widely used structural system ever developed on this planet. It is the most fundamental characteristic of the entire group of arthropods, and it influences virtually every aspect of their lives.

Among its many functions are that it defines the arthropod’s shape, and the shape of each of its external appendages and organs down to the minutest detail. It serves as points of attachment for the majority of the arthropod’s muscles. It impedes water loss in terrestrial animals like spiders. It serves as armor, preventing mechanical injury to the delicate internal organs. It serves as a barrier to infectious agents, e.g., bacteria and fungi. The exoskeleton’s extensions (bristles, setae, trichobothria) are sensory structures, sensing a wide variety of things around the animal. Frequently, its color and adornments serve as camouflage, identifying markers, or warning labels for the animal.

Tarantula anatomy, dorsal aspect.

This exoskeleton, for the most part, comes in the form of a box made of a set of interlocking plates, or a set of jointed tubes.

Less commonly (among terrestrial arthropods, at least), it may be a leathery bag held taut by internal pressure. Superficially, the exoskeleton resembles a medieval knight’s suit of armor with each plate having a unique shape, position, function, and name.

The exoskeleton has a complex layered construction with many folds, ridges, and indentations to provide strength, allow for the attachment of muscles, and allow for the movement of appendages. Its exterior is usually bedecked with a truly bewildering array of sense organs and defensive bristles. It may be transparent, pigmented, or bear iridescent areas that allow for literally more colors than the rainbow.

The exoskeleton is composed of many different substances. Among the more important is chitin. Chemically, chitin is a nitrogenous polysaccharide. Polysaccharides are complex super-molecules made of interconnected strings or matrices of sugar molecules, so huge and complex that they cannot dissolve in water. Associated with chitin is a protein called sclerotin. Like chitin, sclerotin is actually a super-molecule made by cross-bonding simpler protein molecules

(arthropodin) into a vast matrix.

In arachnids, these cross-linkages supply the exoskeleton with its stiffness and hardness.

Another very important component of the tarantula’s exoskeleton is a waxlike coating on the outside. This layer retards water loss, drastically slowing desiccation and preventing wetting.

A tarantula’s exoskeleton is bedecked with apophyses (singular: apophysis) and apodemes. Apophyses are outward extensions of the exoskeleton that are different from bristles (setae and trichobothria) in that they are not jointed where they meet the level of the exoskeleton, but are more or less smooth extensions of it. They are usually much larger than setae and trichobothria.

Apodemes (also called entapophyses) appear as pits or small holes from the exterior and are most frequently tubular extensions sometimes reaching deep into the tarantula’s tissues. Apodemes are also not jointed but are smooth extensions of the exoskeleton. (Apodemes are discussed further on pages 44 and 56.)

Hence, the small pit in a tarantula’s carapace is an apodeme because it is a depression or invagination that intrudes into the tarantula’s body. On the other hand, the tibial hooks (see pages 94 and 98) on a male tarantula are apophyses because they are parts of the exoskeleton that protrude outward from the animal.

The Body. Tarantulas have no head, thorax, or abdomen in the same sense as humans. Their bodies are divided into two obvious parts, the forward prosoma and the rearward opisthosoma.

These are connected by a narrow hourglass constriction called the pedicel that is actually a part of the opisthosoma. A little practice at pronouncing them will make even the novice sound like a professional.

Many arachnologists consider the prosoma to actually be a fused head and thorax, a cephalothorax. However, there is no paleontological evidence that these animals’ ancestors ever had a separate, thorax-like division, nor is there any embryological evidence that they might have possessed one. Thus, while many still use the term cephalothorax, this use is clearly suspect.

Further, the use of the term cephalothorax implies the same body plan and organ arrangement as found in insects, crustaceans, and humans among many other animals. As we shall see shortly, this is not so.

The organization of the tarantula’s internal organs does not follow the conventions assumed by these labels; therefore, to sidestep the discrepancy, we use the terms prosoma and opisthosoma instead.

Likewise, the rearward division, the opisthosoma, contains at least two organs or sets of organs that are not typical of an abdomen: the respiratory organs (book lungs in tarantulas and some other spiders, openings to the tracheal system in many other spiders) and the heart. Thus, even though we have come to expect the lower or rearward division of any animal to be called an abdomen, this name, among arachnids at least, would seem to be inappropriate. Having said that, many experts as well as enthusiasts still use abdomen to refer to this division if for no other reason than that it’s easier to pronounce and spell. In this book we will use both terms interchangeably.

The dorsal (on the back) plate of the prosoma is called a carapace (tergum or dorsal tergum in some older books). In the center, the carapace usually bears a little pit or dent. Although this area appears as a depression on the exterior, it points down like a little stalactite or icicle on the inside. It is called the central apodeme (also dorsal groove, median fovea, thoracic groove, or tergal apodeme). More will be said about apodemes on page

44. This spot is where the carapace is deeply infolded to allow a firm place for muscle attachment. The entire carapace is thickened, heavily trussed, and arched to sustain the force of those

Reviews for The Tarantula Keeper's Guide

[schlyne · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

The book you need if you are going to keep tarantulas as a hobby.