#119 - HAPPY BIRTHDAY: THE TALE OF THE GOLDEN BLUE-LEGGED BABOON SPIDER

The spider in the photograph below is one year old today. This image was captured only moments ago. The depicted yearling tarantula is one of only three remaining holdbacks of the offspring of the Harpactira pulchripes sac I successfully hatched. It was the first American breeding, and was the crown jewel of a half dozen or so American firsts I produced in a short stretch. Today seems like a good time to tell the complete saga of how these then highly coveted "golden blue-legged baboon spiders" made it to America. I was the first to import the species into the US and the first to breed it. Therefore, I feel like I am the only one to tell its American story. It was a passionate pet project of mine that didn't live up to expectations despite the great success. I invested a great deal of money and my was able to produce them and drop the US price from $350 to about $200. But they did not sell as briskly as one would have thought. American hobbyists - overall - are cash poor. Perhaps they should spend less time on Faffbook and work more. And now it seems like at least one dealer is hastily reducing its value. His business model has become: I'll sell cheap to my friends as soon as import lands so I can pay back my German exporter who is the only one making money off of American spider sales. But that's a whole 'nother rant ... Still, that was inevitable as even Thrigmopoeus psychedelicus, or whatever the current flavor of the month now, will quickly follow suit. Fact is, no bug is worth many dollars. It's an illusion that dealers (including myself during my former career) create. Some are just more larcenous than others, and others just clueless. Bugs are just bugs, but everyone chases the next wonder, especially if it's blue. There's no money in bugs. The high rollers are in the reptile world. They've created the illusion that this long-named paint job makes this ball python more than just a friggin' $25 snake. Kudos to them. Tell ya what, the next time I hatch H. pulchripes (I'm still working with 3 females and have the three yearlings for a hopeful male), I'll make sure they are affordable to all.

This yearling Harpactira pulchripes reached 2nd instar on April 7, 2015. It was the first hatched in the U.S.

It seemed like the South African species popped out of nowhere. It was virtually unknown before "someone" allegedly "collected" [read: smuggled] it from its dry earth home in eastern South Africa  to a "European" spider room. Then there was a hatching. I was able to import one single spiderling Harpactira pulchripes from that small, and in rabid demand, eggsac. It was the gem among a big import order I placed with Lee Ardern of The Spider Shop, Wales, UK. I paid £140 for the lone spiderling. With the exchange rate at the time and all the costs of the shipment spread out across the value of the 500 or so spiders imported, my cost was $249.19. This first spiderling to live in America arrived on June 16, 2013. He eventually matured male. Sadly, it was long before I had mature females. 250 bucks wasn't bad for the only one in the U.S., especially as it will still be a long time before American dealers had them and they would ask for $350-400.

Of interest are some of the other species received along with my first lone H. pulchripes. The other highlights in the box were Avicularia hirschii (which I would go on to produce a sac of but never hatch), Avic and Tap Colombia (both of which I would be the first to produce), and the first "Omothymus sp. hatihati" in the U.S. plus some Ornithoctoninae sp. Laos and Pterinopelma sazamai.

My next three H. pulchripes were also imported from Lee. They found their way to my spider room on September 10, 2013. They were a bit bigger and the demand had begun to grow. Few were available at it would still be some time before these would be offered in the states. This time his price was £165 and he only had three available to me. I snapped them up and my final adjusted cost was $300.96 each.

The goodies that shared that box included Heterometrus swammerdami, both Pachistopelma rufonigrum and P. bromelicola (both I would go on to be the first American breeder of), more "hatihati", Haplocosmia himalayana, Xenesthis immanis, Monocentropus balfouri and some of the first Dolicothele (then Oligoxystre) diamantinensis plus about twenty other species.

I now had four slings and fed them well. A short time later I heard that a few others had trickled into the U.S. I knew I would be the first to breed them if I could only get some females. However, as these four grew (just ask Chad or Jason on how fast my Ts grow!), they were all confirmed male. If I was a tinfoil hat conspiracy nut, I'd think that the fucking Germans could sex them right out of the sac. I had to buy a female!

In March 2014, I acquired two females and a mature male. That would be the short story. The long one is quite involved and I will divulge it here. Until now, only a handful of confidants are privy to the tale I'm about to tell. But I won't tease you along. Your first question will probably be how much I paid for these two females and the male. The truth is that I don't recall. The amount was obscene. Previous to these two girls the most I had ever paid for a spider was $500 for an adult female Poecilotheria metallica when they were relatively new to the hobby. That's a story in itself so allow me to digress a bit here ... The reader's digest version is that one of my most annoying customers at the retail shop I had in Nashville (The Living Terrarium & Spider Shoppe) bought all kinds of expensive bugs from me. Then he had to have an adult female P. metallica and Kelly Swift sold him one. For $1000! This young customer changed his mind every five minutes and had more money than sense by a longshot. Not too long after coughing up a cool grand to Swifty I was able to talk him out of it for $500. He ate the other five bills just because that week he happened to be in a Xenesthis or monitor lizard mood.

OK, back to the über-expensive Harpactira pulchripes females ... on the record sheet that I tracked every single spider that went through SPIDERSHOPPE I have their price recorded as "mega". Don't believe me? Check out this screen cap:

For the sake of discussion let's just say that the three spiders were three thousand dollars. That's an even figure in the vicinity at least. There were also the costs of importing and shipping and, as you are about to read, the path to me was a convoluted corkscrew of possum shit.

I eventually did receive the spiders alive on March 13, 2014, as you can see from the screen cap. It was the day of the first ArachnoGathering. And the spiders were at Tinley with us.

To be honest, my memory isn't what it used to be, but I'll try to recount the events. I became obsessed with locating female H. pulchripes, but realized full well that it was a search that was likely to be unsuccessful. Who would want to give up females of what was then the hot new spider? My persistence eventually paid off. On Terraristik Anzeigen I caught wind of a group that might be available and negotiations also took place via Facebook. The seller was a German. That was no surprise. I make no accusations. I allege nothing. But almost every single "new species" pops up in Germany first. You do the math.

However, I will tell you the facts. I have nothing against Germans and have some good friends among German arachnoculturists. However, the country has had more than its share of sellers of animals of questionable origin. Let's just say that. Those that might have access to surprising species often use assumed names on social media. That was the case with my seller. I began to know him by a completely fictitious name that he used on Facebook (Tim Köhler). I did not learn his real name until it came time for me to wire him a significant sum of money. In addition to the very high cost of my 1.2 Harpactira pulchripes, I was also obtaining a pair of Theraphosinae sp. Panama from him for Jason Newland.

Before I sent the money, "Tim" was in contact with me frequently. We went back and forth via Facebook Messenger. The first thing that struck me with how his ability to write English went back and forth from terrible to good. This isn't the first time I've encountered this phenomenon among animal peddlers. He could understand what he wanted to hear, but not what he didn't. He could write what he wanted from you, but not write a response to your own questions. I began to consider backing out of the deal, but I was completely obsessed with the species and I had to acquire females regardless of cost or hassle. I started looking at plane tickets to Germany to pick them up by hand. The big Hamm reptile show was coming up and, at some point, Tim (turned out that is his first name, but Köhler, which means "cool" is a pseudonym), said he would be at the show. I started thinking my safest bet was to travel to Germany, but Tim wanted the money first. The only thing that kept me from backing out of the deal is that I was chatting with Russ Gurley and found out that he had done business with him as well. It was then that I learned that Russ had a few of the species himself.

After much deliberation I sent this anonymous German four grand or so. I had asked everyone I knew about him and everyone agreed that he was a complete flake and a shady character, but that it was very unlikely I would be ripped off. I actually didn't worry so much about the latter. I had made my purchase high profile enough that the European community would be aware of any rip off and he would be done, plus I had no qualms about catching a plane to Deutschland to stand my boot upon his temple.

With the money sent and received, I began to hear very little from Tim. He was constantly in contact when he wanted my money, but disappeared for long stretches after he had it. I became very anxious and very angry. We had cooked up a plan where Russ would pick up the spiders at the Hamm show. He was going there and could then drop them off with Reptile Industries' European distributor. They were running a service for American buyers at the German reptile show where they would export your purchases back to the Reptile Industries compound in Florida and then ship them via FedEx to the buyer. So many things to go wrong ...

Eventually I got in touch with both Tim and Russ (Russ is also notoriously difficult to reach via either phone or email!) and they agreed to text each other while at the show. But then I heard nothing from them for an excruciatingly frustrating amount of time. I was wound like a top. I sent so many unanswered messages to both of them. I was cussing myself out for being so reckless. I wanted to head to O'Hare and get my ass to Germany.

Somehow, some way, I eventually got word from Russ that he had the spiders. I almost had a cardiac event. He said that this douchebag (Tim Ranl is his real name) texted him, but refused to go out of his way to meet Russ somewhere at the venue. He ended up unceremoniously just leaving them at some friends booth where, thankfully, Russ was able to retrieve them.

In the meantime, I had been doing some paperwork and correspondence with Reptile Industries in Florida, which is owned by Mark and Kim Bell, two reptile world legends who have an amazing facility. I first met them when they were much greener and were mostly selling colubrid snakes that Mark was breeding. They were living in Michigan and actually exhibited at our podunk local show when it was still Lee Watson's Reptile Swap. I was going to IHS symposia thirty years ago that the Bell's would attend. Nowadays, Kim runs the business and Mark enjoys his herds of tortoises and other critters. It's become huge. It seems Kim has gone out of her way to create a largely female office staff and I did not enjoy working with them at all. I was beginning to wonder if one competent person would ever be involved in this transaction, which, let's remember, was five spiders and a fistful of hundos. Even dealing with RI became a hassle.

I heard nothing more from Tim, Russ or even the girls at RI for some time. Eventually, I contacted RI to ask when they were going to ship my spiders. They said they were all fine and in their office. They said they "looked skinny" so a couple had been offered crickets and ate. They had planned to ship in a couple of days. I heard nothing more so I called and said, "will you be shipping soon?" They said they had the day before. I said, 'WHAT THE FUCK!!!!!!!". No word on shipping, no email with tracking number, no nothing. I said do you have a tracking number. They did. But it proved that they had shipped by spiders to FUCKING ARIZONA! I lost my mind. Some poor girl had to listen to me berate her about the cost of these spiders and the brutal experience the entire process of obtaining them had already been. It turns out they sent them to some gecko guy in AZ. Don't know how they could make that big of a mistake. They never even apologized. I learned after the fact that RI ceased doing the Hamm imports because my error was the final straw in their frustration with facilitating the export and import. They blamed their European distributor for everything. One big problem was all I instructed Ranl was to put my name and species on containers as RI had instructed me. Instead, the moron put Gurley's name and you could barely read it and no species. RI got confused. And, once again, never apologized. They did, however, get the gecko guy in AZ on the phone. He had received the spiders and, no doubt, was shocked when he opened his box. Reptile Industries asked for his return shipment and said they would provide the shipping label and send a FedEx driver to pick it up. The gecko guy said he had no heat packs and, get this, didn't have enough money to buy hand warmers at Home Depot or something. I was furious. RI said they would send him heat packs. It may have been mild in AZ and Florida, but it wouldn't be in between.

So now, after being shipped from Germany to wherever to Florida to Arizona, the spiders would be shipped back to Florida for repacking and then sent on to me outside of Chicago. What an ordeal. It turns out that RI would re-ship them on the Thursday before the NARBC Tinley Park, which was the day before my first ArachnoGathering and set-up for the show. I had planned to leave my house with my truckload of booth at 9:30 a.m., but now would have to wait on the FedEx driver. I had rented a big cargo van and filled it with spiders and displays, plus all the stuff for ArachnoGathering and my luggage. I sat in my cold Huntley driveway with the van running waiting for the FedEx guy. It was March in Chicago and, even with all of the problems so far, all I was worried about that morning was that the spiders weren't freezing on the FedEx delivery truck. Once he arrived, I quickly opened the box while sitting behind the driver's seat. To my horror, the spiders were terribly packed. This idiot Tim had delivered them to Hamm on that clay desert lizard substrate in big, cheap plastic deli containers. Of course, Reptile Industries is used to shipping wild-caught rose hairs in the same deli cups they were imported in. They don't know any better. Much to my surprise all the spiders were alive and unharmed. They couldn't have been packed worse. I was pissed at everyone involved, but overjoyed to see a mature male and two females, one of which was larger than I had any idea the species I could get.

Many of the people who attended Tinley at the first ArachnoGathering got to take a peak at my prize spiders. The smaller of the two females from Ranl is the mother of the spider that began this long blog entry. One of the second group I imported - the three larger spiderlings - was the father of my H. pulchripes sac (if memory serves). The details would be in the linked posts below.

That is the tale of how the first "golden blue-legged baboon spiders" made it to America and the story of the ordeal of obtaining adults in order to successfully breed them. There is an Arachnoboards photo thread I created with my pix from various stages of the process. There also is a Breeding Report that details my first American breeding. If you have the time, these two AB threads are good companions to this lengthy tale. I hope you've enjoyed.

MJ

#57 - SUNDAY, FUNDAY #5

Damn, it's bed time and I almost forgot my weekly totally random, dear diary, day-in-the-life, off-topic SUNDAY, FUN DAY post!

I love to educate and I love to tell travel stories and I do love to rant now and again. But these off-topic Sunday posts are equally fun for me and I hope some readers enjoy them too. If not, just skip them.

For this week's SF post I will just share my weekend. I worked the 9-5 shift on Saturday at On Target Range and Tactical Training Center. I close on Friday nights so it has affected the ritual me and my bonus dad Joel had going with dinner and a movie every Friday night. We go to iPic Theaters in South Barrington where I have a membership and we sit in our power recliners with pillow and blanket and order good food and drink while we watch the flick. Sometimes we eat beforehand at the neighboring Wok 'n Fire, which has some really good sushi - my favorite food. Now that I am working on Friday evenings, Joel and I have only occasionally been able to catch a movie together, the last being Amy Schumer's excellent Trainwreck. So I messaged Joel on Friday, and asked if he might want to come visit me at work before the end of my shift for a full tour followed by some shooting. I've taken Joel shooting at On Target a number of times pre-employment, but now I could give him the full tour and I no longer pay for range time and have a wide range of company owned firearms to shoot. On all of our previous visits I had just taught Joel to fire a variety of my own handguns. He and I shot machine guns and the .50 cal Barrett sniper rifle out in Arizona during one of our trips to Vegas, but I never shot rifles with him at On Target. We have 12 lanes of 25 yard pistol range on one side of the pro shop and 12 lanes of 50 yard rifle range on the other. He was surprised when I told him that instead of firing any of my guns including the one I was wearing for my shift, we would instead be shooting three .45 ACP handguns from the rental selection that I had chosen (Springfield Operator 1911, CZ 97 BD and Springfield XDM-45 Match), and also three rifles (Smith & Wesson M&P15 AR-15 with an EOTech red dot sight, a Springfield M1A (civilian version of the old military M14) and a Remington 700 with a Leopold scope). Both of the latter rifles are chambered in the powerful .308 Winchester (7.62 x 51 mm).

Anyway, here's a vid clip of the Honorable Joel Greenblatt (he's a Judge!) sending some lead down range with the AR-15.

After our range session we visited Kumi Sushi, which is also in Crystal Lake, for some fabulous fresh, raw fish.

Dining on my favorite cuisine.
I've lost 30 pounds now, but this is an unavoidable diet cheat.

Joel and I are going to Costa Rica for ten days at the beginning of December, and during dinner we discussed our upcoming trip. This morning I booked our rental car and made inquiries for our first lodging, which will be at the same location as my 2006 Costa Rica field trip's first base camp - La Quinta Sarapiqui near La Selva Biological Station.

Then I drove to Wheaton, Illinois where an "All Animal Expo" is held twice a month. It's worth the hour drive each way for me just to get crickets for $15 or less a thousand. I don't need as many as I did a month or two ago, but with 500 ct. boxes for $10 that probably contain almost a thousand crickets you can't go wrong and I'll just grow up the unneeded smaller ones. What I always do when they start to mature is dump that excess outdoors! I don't want chirpers or females laying eggs in my terrariums!

On the way there I reached out to my best mate Mark Pennell via FaceTime. Yes, it was while driving. I set my phone horizontally by my dash gauges and mostly kept my eyes on the road. Afterward he texted me a photo of my mates Ray and Ange Hale on his computer screen as he had FaceTimed with them next. Ray and Ange have run the British Tarantula Society for decades and are dear friends who I look forward to seeing on every trip over. I miss Mark, Kim and Brandon and am glad that Mark should be staying with me for a week again during the first week of October.

Rayzor and Angela - the heart of the British Tarantula Society

Two more of the BTS' finest and my dearest mates
Kim and Mark Pennell

Mark is the originator of the "Sunday, Funday" tag as he spends his well-deserved day off chilling and, more often than not, keeping Tiger beer in business. Kim and Mark and their families and friends are members of a local social club and pub called the P.B.A. (Port of Bristol Authority) and Sunday usually sees the whole gang getting together there. So, of course, he had to text me a pic of his first round of Tiger. My only drinking during my now month-plus diet was when I visited the Campbell brothers and the other Minnverts up in Minneapolis last weekend. I gained a few pounds back that weekend, but shed them and more within the next 48 hours so it was another well-earned and necessary "cheat". Now I have to be good all week as we have an On Target company BBQ at the boss' house this coming Saturday. I'll be headed there straight from work with a bottle of Breckenridge Small Batch Bourbon and some blackberry brandy for my boss and maybe a bottle of wine for his wife.


I had to deliver one spider order and also return a male Harpactira chrysogaster to Jason Newland. I had paired one female with the male two weeks ago (that video is here), but hadn't gotten around to pairing my second mature female. Last night, even though I was extremely exhausted and full of sushi and a big bottle of Asahi, I did pair the male with the other female before I hit the hay. Both pairing went very well so I doubt I will need to borrow Jason's male again. The female's are extremely receptive and the males are eager and fearless. I love Harpactira.

Harpactira chrysogaster, adult male

Of course, the first people I greet at each All Animal Expo is Randy and Randy Martinez of Evil's Arachnids. This father and son team have become good friends and also are customers. Mark had asked me to say hi to them and I took this photo to text to Mark.

Randy Sr. and Randy Jr. Martinez of Evil's Arachnids
vendors at Wheaton, Illinois' All Animal Expo

After the show I did what Sundays are best for - feeding spiders and napping! The feeding part is becoming a less-time consuming task, but I've still got plenty more to do on my Tuesday day off, which also will see me sending out more spider orders. I've got to open tomorrow morning at On Target, so now it's time to sleep.

Auf wiedersehen, MJ

#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.

I don't like to advertise, but - as a PSA - once again I'll tell you that I get everything I mentioned above from Pet Solutions, which has great prices, huge selection and fast & free shipping on $49+ orders.

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