They're heeeeeere! (New tarantulas!)

I managed to snap this picture of Pixie when I caught her out of her burrow just now. The angle isn’t great, but you can see she’s getting the start of some adorable bedhead cowlicks on her legs and abdomen.

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Got some pictures of Mathilde. In the background, you can see some of the landscaping she’s done. She spends all day moving dirt!



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Nice update! I love that they’re spending more time out and about where you’re able to see and enjoy them. Sounds like Mathilde, especially, is quite the industrious creature.

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I need to snap a picture of Mathilde’s whole enclosure. The landscaping she’s done is really quite impressive. I’ve had to dig out her water bowl several times. :joy:

Here are some pictures of Mathilde’s renovations. She’s been quite the busy little bee…er… spider. :joy: Keep in mind the substrate level in the enclosure was totally flat when I put her in there. She’s done all this work in just a few weeks. She started shortly after her last molt.




And the architect herself.

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Yeah its amazing how much dirt they can move for such small creatures. And, how fast they can do it.

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It really is. And she’s still so little! I’d read about G. pulchripes moving dirt around, but I didn’t really expect to see such a dramatic demonstration of that behaviour until she was a little older.

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Ill try to get a good picture of my hentzi and his new cavern tomorrow. And hes been in the enclosure about a week.

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I’d love to see what he’s done with the place! Pixie, my T. albopilosus, has dug quite the elaborate labyrinth of tunnels, but somehow that looks less dramatic than what Mathilde did. They’re very industrious little creatures. I love watching them shoveling dirt around with their pedipalps. Watching them carrying around little balls of dirt is so freaking cute.

I had to give Mathilde a new water dish. The first one is totally buried under a mountain of dirt, and I didn’t want to destroy her project by trying to dig it out.

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Pretty hard to get a good picture. She didnt bother to clean off the plastic! But the substrate is about 2.5" deep there and the little cavern is about 1.5" or so, with a corkbark roof over it. It extends back another 1.5+" from the corner and comes up under the cork bark.

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That’s quite a bit of renovating! It’s crazy how good they are at digging.

Pixie, the T. albopilosus, has molted again. It seems like she eats a meal or two and then molts. She’s going to need an enclosure upgrade soon!

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Slings will molt pretty often tilnthey reach juvenile age. Then they slow down some.

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So Mathilde molted…and it’s looking like her name will still be Mathilde, because I’m pretty sure she is indeed female! HOORAY!!! :partying_face: Granted, this is the first molt I’ve ever tried to sex, so it’s entirely possible I’m wrong, but it was a nice, intact molt, and there’s a definite flap inside the abdomen that sure looks like a spermathecae to me. I’ll certainly look at any future molts to check my work, and I’ll be more confident once I’ve looked at a larger molt of hers, but…I’m comfortable taking the win and calling her female for now. :blush:

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Thats awesome news! Congrats! My t’s always seem to ravage the abdomens before I can get to them. Need to soak my LP’s latest and try it.

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I was actually surprised at how easy it was. Of course, Mathilde helped me out a lot by having a nice clean molt that she didn’t shred. She even pushed it up out of her hidey knook so it was easy for me to retrieve.

Still waiting for Pixie to push her last two molts out of her burrow.

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