I spent at least an hour flipping cover in a little foresty bit of guana whilst I was there, looking for amphisbeana or blindsnakes to no avail. Two species were very abundant though. One was the cotton ginner (a tiny sphaerodactylus gecko we've featured before). The other was this tarantula.
There were absolutely loads of them - sometimes 2 or 3 under each log but they seemed confined to this particular glade - I didn't find any at the higher and drier elevations. The above shot is a crop - the full shot shows that this one had just moulted (which may explain why it didn't run away unlike all the others).
This species is actually pretty small compared to most tarantulas - just a couple of inches all in.
6 comments:
That's QUITE big enough, thank you very much! I don't know what it is - I have no problem with the vast majority of arthropods. I've happily held hissing cockroaches and emperor scorpions, which were all much bigger than this chap, but for some reason, eight legs and hair gives me the willies.
This is probably why I coxed a women's eight rather than a men's four at Cambridge *ba-dum tsh*
We had a tarantula at the museum where I worked. The shed skin was as scary to most people as the actual spider. Very challenging--sometimes dangerous--for them to shed; getting all those body parts safely out of the old exoskeleton.
Thanks for the in-the-wild look at this! It would be a good entry in Life Photo Meme, as would most all of your posts...
THanks both - that Life Photo Meme looks interesting.
I have been researching about spiders and tarantulas too, then I found out that there exists a huge spider, tarantula indeed, that is called Goliath, this tarantula lives in south America and can measure around eleven inches, in fact, that size allow it to eat even birds, which is a pretty stunning feature!
I love spiders. from my childhood I am collecting their breeds. I have 10 kinds at home.g
It is really a great and worth to share with people.
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