#35B - CASA DE TARANTULA #1 REVISITED

Lonnie asked a question about my first installment in the new Casa de Tarantula series. It's a good one so I thought I'd post it as a blog entry rather than answer in the comments to ensure that more people saw my reply. I will go into more detail about the enclosures depicted in #35.

He wrote: "Would you provide some details on what you put inside the Harpactira marksi box? I love seeing those burrows as they would be found in nature (perfectly round and lined with silk) and like knowing how others get their spiders to do it."

To be honest, this H. marksi is one of the only Harpactira that has such a perfect silken burrow and was one of the reasons I chose the particular enclosure to photograph for the blog.

What I normally due for similar spiders is to fill the enclosure with a few inches of expandable brick coco coir (ZooMed EcoEarth) mixed with exactly three 32 oz. deli cups full of very warm water that has been then been mixed with loose fiber and coarser CocoSoft Fiber bedding (Blue Iguana). I mix the two types of coco in about an equal ratio and add water as needed to moisten the dry CocoSoft that has been added to the mix. These coarser fibers give the substrate more "structural integrity" and if burrows are created by the spider they are more likely to be well-formed. Years ago before I switched to only using coconut coir I did the same thing by mixing peat moss with vermiculite. The vermiculite would hold water better than the peat and burrows were stronger than in the peat where they might collapse over time as the peat dried.

Beyond the coco mix substrate what my Harpactira and Monocentropus enclosures contain is some scattered dry live oak leaves and dry moss (Zilla Beaked Moss, usually). This makes the enclosure appear more natural and attractive, but it also gives the spiders something to incorporate into their burrow mouths and attach silk to. What you don't see in the photograph is the wood I use to create a retreat. I either angle a piece of cork bark into the substrate and tamp down moist coco around it to make it secure or I use a "half log" reptile hide like Fluker's Critter Cavern that is also angled and set into the substrate and then "cemented" in place with tamped down moist coco.

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Here again is the photograph that Lonnie commented on. You can see that the burrow mouth is surrounded by the beaked moss and that is what it lined with silk to create the nice round entrance. Behind it you can see a piece of cork bark that created the original shelter that the spider initially used as a retreat and then over time it's home became more elaborate.

But each spider will adapt its home in its own way. We always have to remember that captivity is an unnatural situation. I am not providing the "earth" or ground cover my Harpactira would have in South Africa. And each species lives a bit differently in nature. They may dig tunnels under rocks or occupy a burrow created by another animal. I have never observed the African species I keep in nature. I have observed many obligate burrowers in both the southwestern US and the tropics both in the New World and Old World. It is always astounding to see how perfectly round most burrows are. Tarantulas are accomplished diggers and they often make burrows that look so perfect you would swear that they were drilled with a coring machine.

The final photo is of the enclosure of my big female Harpactira pulchripes. You can clearly see the "Critter Cavern" and how she has silked herself in. This is more typical. She hasn't come out in forever and I am hoping she has created an egg sac inside. Some of my other Harpactira have sealed themselves in under the angled cork bark and used both silk, leaves and coco fiber to close off most of their retreat. When they are in a molt they are often completely sealed in. Then again, I have a few that ignore the nice little retreat area I have created for them and just dig down in one corner of the enclosure. I have one H. curvipes that isn't even tunneled out of sight. She just sits in a depression she has made in one corner that reaches the enclosure bottom. She is below the surface level of the substrate, but never out of sight. Like I said, captivity is unnatural and they are unlikely to create retreats that look as they would in nature.

mated adult female Harpactira pulchripes © Michael Jacobi

MJ