I had the craziest dream last night... well, I always have crazy dreams.  But this one involved tarantulas so I thought, "Why not post it on IG?"  I apologize now for the inanity.  :P

I live next door to a moron who doesn't care about and can't control her dogs.  She's got a basset and a beagle she lets howl and yowl whenever they please.  She's gotten ticketed for it a few times but that doesn't change anything.  The past week, for some reason, the barking has become really, really bad and it's been driving me crazy.  Those breeds are SO LOUD... and I currently work from home so it's hard to concentrate when I have beagle yelping piercing my ears.  I guess this dream is my mind's way of dealing with it.

In my dream the dogs were in the backyard being obnoxiously loud... and I got fed up.

I gathered up a bunch of H lividum tarantulas in a bin, marched over to her gate... and when the dogs ran up to me all excited for human attention, I dumped all the spiders on them. 

The dogs died after being tagged multiple times.

And then the next day I watching was the local news (something I never do IRL) and there was a story about two unexplained dog deaths.  "Multiple puncture wounds from what appear to be fangs" but no vet could figure out what they were from.  I got away with it scot-free.

I woke up this morning like, "WTF is wrong with my mind."

5 comments View Entry

When I first got Ike and Tina (H gigases) they scared me quite a bit.  They were kept together and were making each other so angry their hissing carried throughout the entire house (hence the name Ike and Tina).  I was thinking, “Man, I don’t want to deal with these guys.  Big angry baboon tarantulas… no way.”  But I had to deal with them.  The way they were kept by the previous owner was just unacceptable. 

As a replacement for the L parahybana he let get eaten, The Jerk gave me Tina and threw Ike in for good measure.  He was keeping them in a Sterilite container, with no air holes and about an inch of dirt.  By looking at the amount of crickets in the container, he just threw a handful in even though the spiders were too stressed to eat.

Their new home as a spacious 10-gallon aquarium with plenty of dirt to burrow in and a huge water dish.  When I put them in there, the hissing stopped.  They were happy little bugs.  The only problem that night was I didn’t have screen locks for the lid.  In another moment of, “What the heck was I thinking,” I decided piling some text books on top would be enough weight to keep it down until I could get locks the next day. 

I wake up that morning and they’re both still in their container… Ike is cleaning himself and Tina is moving around.  Then I notice Tina is dragging her front leg underneath of her.  “Oh no!  Tina broke her leg!”  Then I look at Ike again and he’s not cleaning himself… he’s eating the leg HE broke.  The only thing I can deduce is they both tried to escape their home, was strong enough to lift the books at least far enough to get their leg stuck… and then once they couldn’t lift anymore Tina broke her leg freeing herself and Ike ripped his leg off.  I felt TERRIBLE.  Tina ended up throwing her leg, too… so they were both missing their left front leg.  Didn’t stop them from eating or digging so I guess they were no worse for wear.

I was keeping them together because I wanted Tina one day to eat Ike, so he wouldn’t starve to death or die getting stuck in his molt.  But I quickly grew attached to them and, upon seeing Tina taking over every burrow Ike started, I decided to give Ike his own home.

Let me tell you why this species is my favorite.  In addition to the facts that they are big baboon tarantulas… they look cool (like velvet!) and can swim… they are also sweethearts.  Don’t let the “hissing” part of the story confuse you.  They weren’t happy with their home and wanted to tell me about it.  Once they were moved they calmed down.  And from that point on when ever I had to do anything to their containers or had to move them around they were little teddy bears.  If I needed them to move, I tapped their bootays with a paintbrush and they moved… slowly, too.  No hissing, no threat display, no stubbornness and no freaking out and tearing around the container.  When I re-housed Ike the first time he reminded me of my rose hair.

About 4 months later Ike did something that worried me.  He sealed off the entrance to his hide.  I was thinking he was going to molt, and I didn’t want him to go through that.  I peeked in and he wasn’t molting but that scare was enough to make me decide to stick him back in with Tina.

Tina was very excited to see her boyfriend again… but her advances confused and scared Ike and he ended up getting pushed into a corner.  Tina got bored with him and retreated to her burrow while Ike stood outside the entrance like, “Come out.  It was stage fright.  The human was watching.” 

For some reason, in this new aquarium, Ike didn’t burrow.  He was always chilling on the surface.  I liked that because I could see if he was still eating, I could gauge when he’d be molting…  and I could see if Tina ate him. 

I saw Tina out and about every day but every once in a while it looked like she was stalking Ike.  She'd slowly creep up on him... and by this time she had molted and was colored black.  When she'd walk up to him it was like watching the shadow of death.

Two months later, on Saturday, May 10^th was a local reptile expo where I was working a booth and that day exhausted me so much when I got home I crashed; I don’t even remember falling asleep that night.  When I woke up in the morning my first thought was, “Oh no!  I didn’t check on my spiders at all yesterday.”  So I went into the room and was making my rounds when I got to Ike and Tina’s cage.  Ike wasn’t in his usual spot.  The light wasn’t the best so I got my flashlight… and all that was left was two legs.

I guess it was a good thing I wasn’t home to witness Tina attacking Ike because it looked like it was pretty violent.  Tina is a big ole fatty now.

Some pics:

Tina and Ike when I first got them:

Ike after he lost his leg:

Tina after her molt:

The lovers reunited... sorta:

0 comments View Entry

It was a few days before Christmas in 2006. My boyfriend came home from work and as he walked through the door he had a weird expression on his face and was holding his hands behind his back.

“I’ve got your Christmas present.”

“Well, don’t give it to me now! It’s not Christmas, yet. Go hide it in your car or something.”

“No, I can’t do that.”

And then he shows me what he was hiding… a PetCo box. Immediately I thought it was a new rat or a hamster to replace the one I had that died.

“Did you get me a hamster?”

“No. A tarantula.”

“Are you serious??”

Now before you think, “Wow, a tarantula is a really random present to give someone,” I had wanted a tarantula for about a decade but either lived with people who wouldn’t allow me to have one or didn’t have funds to buy one. I even already had its name picked out: Freebird.

The guy at PetCo told my bf that we “had to leave the tarantula in the box for 24 hours to let it get acclimated to the new environment.” Having not previously researched proper care of a tarantula, that seemed totally acceptable to me. But really it should have been a red flag that the PetCo guy didn’t know what he was talking about… I mean, it’s not a fish. My bf told me it was a female Chilean Rose Hair and he found a great site we can look at to research how to care for her.

So off to Arachnoboards it was. I spent the entire night researching spiders, which wasn’t a good idea. You see, at this point, while I liked tarantulas better than true spiders, I was still quite an arachnophobe. So after looking at all the pics of tarantulas I had some of the freakiest nightmares ever that night.

The next day comes and we get her into her new home and she’s the cutest, fuzziest little thing ever. The next months are pretty typical for rosies… not much happened. She ate sporadically… once in a while I’d catch her drinking… that was about it. She did, however become my all-time favorite pet… even though on a surface level she was pretty boring when you spend a lot of time around her, or any tarantula for that matter, they actually become really fascinating.

One day she was climbing up the side of her enclosure for some reason and I was watching her. I noticed one of her back femurs looked as if it was crushed at some point. I don’t know how to describe it but it was, like, layered and had ridges. It obviously was an old wound, though, and didn’t seem to bother her at all.

A month or so later I’m at work and I get an email from my boyfriend saying Freebird was molting. Then I remembered her femur, for some reason I just knew it was going to cause problems with her molt. By the time I got home she was done molting but her molt didn’t come off all the way. It was stuck on that back leg. Not wanting to stress her out I left her alone for a while. Didn’t shine lights on her. Didn’t try to pull the molt off.

Then curiosity got the best of me and I shined my flashlight at her. “Wow! Her carapace is very brightly colored… almost like a brand new penny! I’ve never seen that color on a female rosie before… only on males… Wait. No. No effing way. Holy hell I see boxing gloves and hooks.” I immediately started crying. The tarantula I thought I’d have for the next 20 years is actually going to die a lot sooner than that. It was like finding out my kid had cancer. It never occurred to me that maybe I should try sexing him myself. I just believed what PetCo had told my bf. Stupid of me.

During the night he threw his leg/molt. The next day I decided, since he was not the spider I thought he was I was going to change his name… He then became known as “Sven” because he had seven legs.

I posted my plight on Arachnoboards along with a picture of Sven. A member contacted me saying he’s never seen that coloring on a male before and he’d love to be able to do a breeding loan with Sven. Knowing that a male tarantula’s goal in life is basically mating, I reluctantly agreed. I had a male L parahybana that wanted out to prowl so badly that he broke his fang off chewing on his screen lid. I’d hate for that to happen to my little Sven.

I bawled so bad when I boxed him up and shipped him. I don’t recommend anyone’s first live shipping attempt be with their all-time favorite pet.

Upon arriving to his destination he was promptly munched by the female. And I cried even more.

Haha, I had no idea I’d get so attached to a little “bug.”

Here are some pics:

The first pic of “FreeSvenBird”… the day we took him out of his box…

Sven with his molt still stuck to him…

Sven...

3 comments View Entry

…So then I decided that I’d use my Exacto knife to cut a hole in the box, flip the box over on the new enclosure so if she were to climb out the hole she’d go straight into her enclosure.  It had never dawned on me until just now that she could have chewed through the box if she wanted to!  I piled books on the top of the box so it wouldn’t fall off and then waited.  I stayed up for the next four hours waiting for her to climb out.  It finally got to the point where I had to go to bed so I asked my bf to wake me up if he sees her in her new home.

About 2 AM he woke me up saying she wasn’t in the box anymore… so I went downstairs and peeked in her hide.  Sure enough she was huddled up in the very back.  “Aw, poor traumatized tarantula.”

And that was the last time I saw her for the next two months.

By the time I woke up in the morning she had sealed the front of her hide off with dirt and webbing.  If I absolutely needed I could shine a flashlight in her hide and see maybe a foot or an outline of her bootay.  But she seemed okay.  Crickets I put in would disappear and little white blotches of poo would appear on her glass.  I knew she was getting out and moving around… just not when I was there.

Then one day I was at work and I get an email from my bf, “Toni is either molting or dead.”  When I got home I tried looking in her burrow and I could see some movement so I knew she wasn’t dead… but at the same time, what body parts of hers I could see looked, well, weird.  Like she molted and was deformed now.  I didn’t want to stress her out so I left her alone.  For the next couple of weeks I left her alone.

Then one night I was sitting on the couch in the spider room and was witness to one of the creepiest things I have ever seen; and I can’t even explain why it was so creepy.

Some movement catches my attention from the corner of my eye.  It’s in Toni’s cage.  I’m seeing these long, spindly, grey, fluffy masses slowly climb out of the hide.  Now I’m looking at this huge grey tarantula chilling at the front of Toni’s hide and I’m thinking, “That’s not Toni.  Toni is small and black and orange.”

Turns out Toni is Tony.  I tried to move in for a closer inspection but he bolts back into his hide.

In a strange coincidence my friend Kevin tells me he’s buying a female P irminia… “Perfect!  Now Tony has a date!”  So I send Tony up to Kevin for a breeding loan.  Some time passes, Tony doesn’t get munched and I take him back home… well, after chasing him around Kevin’s room.  We eventually found him on a shoe under his bed.  That’s my Tony!

Where’s Tony, now?  Well… remember that L parahybana I got at the same time I got Tony.  Ended up that guy was a mature male.  He, too, went on a breeding loan but I told my friend Brian when I get him back he can have the little guy so when he passes he can be preserved and mounted.  Unfortunately the jerk I sent him to basically allowed him to get eaten by his female.  So I owed Brian another mature male.  Tony was a good-looking little guy so I donated him to Brian instead.  He has since passed on and is now mounted on Brian’s “spider wall.”

So there you have it… the story of the spider I rarely ever saw and when I did he was usually running away.

And a couple of pictures so you can put a face with a name:

Tony climbing out of his peanut butter jar…

Tony in his “too small” container…

Yeah, I wasn’t joking about the box thing…

Tony the one time I caught him outside his hide after he molted where he didn’t freak out and bolt…

Tony as taken by Brian…

Tony's mount...

0 comments View Entry

Seven months after I got my first tarantula I got three more.  I was looking through Craigslist and found a local guy with quite a few Ts and centipedes he needed to sell.  I thought, “What the hey?”  I went down and picked up an L parahybana, H lividum and P irminia. 

The P irminia became named Toni… Toni the Suntiger… get it?  She’s grrrrrrrrrrrreat!  I know… lame.  Anyway, Toni was the only one not in a permanent home.  She was in a peanut butter jar so I decided to upgrade her digs.

I got her new home all set up and discovered her old container fit perfectly over the door in the lid of the new container, so I could set her there upside-down and let her climb out on her own (read: I was still terrified of spiders and didn’t want to have any direct contact).  Well, when she was climbing out it was the first time I saw her really well and I realized that she’s a tad bit too big for the container I was moving her into.

A couple nights later I tried re-housing her again… so let me tell you how she almost killed me.

When scooting my rosie around all I had to do was tap her bootay with a paintbrush.  So I try this with Toni and, with venom dripping from her fangs, she turns and attacks the paintbrush.  So then I thought, “Well the rosie doesn’t like getting air puffed at her, maybe if I puff air at Toni she’ll turn and run?”  She turned…  She turned and tried to attack my mouth.

Then I thought if she didn’t have her hide and her dirt in there I could easily shake her out.  So I very carefully pull her hide out… tip her enclosure to line it up with the “transfer container” I needed her to go into… and then the dirt gave way collapsing on her, freaking her out and she bolted quick as can be into the transfer container.  (Please don’t ask me why I thought it was a good idea to take her out of one container, into another container, just to put her into her permanent container.)

The task at that point was this: I was going to tip the transfer container into her new container and then brush her onto the ground.  Then I was to pull the transfer container up and my boyfriend was supposed to as quickly as possibly put her lid on.  Well, I’m brushing her… she’s slowly climbing… her feet are touching ground… I pull the container up but my bf prematurely lowered the lid causing the two to crash into each other and thereby freaking Toni out.  Before I knew it I had this black blur climbing back up the transfer container towards my hand.

Without even thinking I dropped everything and ran backwards as fast as I possibly could, slamming my butt so hard into the banister leading downstairs I developed a good 6” bruise in the days to come.  But thankfully that banister was there or I would have fallen backwards down a flight of stairs, probably breaking my neck and dying.  Would that make it into the Darwin Awards?  “Death by running away from small tarantula”

Anyway, if Toni wanted to she could have been on my face gnawing on my eyeball by the time I stepped away from her.  But now the problem is this… instead of running on to me she’s now clinging to the edge of the counter.  The edge, you know, so I can’t very well stick a catch cup over her.  I’m at a loss of what to do and I’m worrying she’s going to run on the floor and get stepped on or she’ll run under the fridge.  My bf starts putting plastic grocery sacks on his hand like he’s going to pick her up like a piece of dog poo.  “She may be small but I’m pretty sure her fangs can puncture a thin sheet of plastic.”

Then I remembered something I read: tarantulas only have 1-2 top speed bursts in them before they need to rest.  “She’s already booked at me a couple of times.  She’s probably tired.”  And I knew that tarantulas, when threatened, would rather try to escape to a safe place than fight…  So I took a box I had laying on the floor, set it on the counter-top facing her, hoped she thought it was a huge burrow, gently tapped her butt with my paintbrush and I’ll be darned if she didn’t very slowly climb into that box, up the side and then chill.

Now that she was in the box I was not letting her out!  So I taped up both ends so she couldn’t escape… then it dawned on me, “I have to get her out of there somehow.  Dang I messed it up, now.”

To be continued...

1 comments View Entry

When I first got into the hobby the biggest difficulty I had was with scientific names.  I joined Arachnoboards to learn more about tarantulas and it seemed that with every thread I had to have another tab open for Google so I could search what animal it was people were talking about.  "What the heck is an Avicularia?  Oooh...Why can't they just write 'pinktoe?'  I know what that is."

Now, only 1 1/2 years later I find that if someone DOESN’T use scientific names I don’t know what they’re talking about.

I was working a booth for the Mile High Bug Club this weekend at the Rocky Mountain Reptile Expo.  We were selling tarantulas and scorpions at the booth and someone came up and asked if we were selling “Costa Rican Zebra Legs.”  I had absolutely no idea what he was asking for.  “Is that a centipede?”  “Is that a tarantula?”  I was lost until another club member said, “Seemani;” and that’s so odd because an A seemani is a very, very common tarantula in the hobby…I should know its common name.  Well, I guess maybe if he had said “striped knee” I would have been a little more on track, but still.

Does it happen to anyone else?

Now, if only I could get the pronunciation of the scientific names down. 

5 comments View Entry