Articles: Duke or Duchess?

For most collectors, acquiring a female spider is important. Why? Yes, because they can live much longer than the male... But, to some other Collector/Breeder, would very much like to have male for breeding purposes. Little that we know, in market, for some specific species, male specimen are difficult to find, which can lead into shortage in that particular species, at lease in captivity. I don’t know why? But maybe because everyone tends to only kept female spider? For keeper, please learn to sex your spider, you want female so much, but don’t even bother to learn how differentiate them, and keep posting “Sex Please/Help Me! /Male or Female? / Dude or Chick? At least try your best to sex them first and seek for confirmation. Come on you guys!!! It’s only either male or female, I hope... (Except human: we have muscular gay, petit lesbian, sexy transsexual, animalistic bisexual, NOTE: gay + gay or etc. can be mated with any specific skills, but will not producing any young-lings...haha). It’s not that hard, there are a few way to sex your specimen, each method may have their own pros and cons.

Exuvia of a 0.1 juvenile
Brachypelma klassi 
(Schmidt & Krause, 1994)

*Exuvia Method

Exuvia or molt skins are the most accurate and most definitive way to sex your tarantula. This method can be use when your spider reaches juvenile or larger stages. This is because; we need to allocate the spermatheca between the anterior book lung, which look like a flap that use to store the sperm deposited by male specimen during mating, the spermatheca is not uniform in shape, they are differ from one species to another. That why we got “Spermatheca Gallery” in Malaysian Tarantula Society FB Group Page. Haaa...Find it! This method only require you to collect the molt skin after the molting process is over, no need to neither handle or disturb the specimen especially the bad-tempered  one. But if it, a New world species, you have a chance to have a taste of Urticating Hair (Been there, done that)…Haha. I would recommend you to make yourself a homemade small 1’x 1’ lighting box for your aid. Open the light and put the Exuvia on the box. It will help you, if the spider is in early stage of juvenile.

*Ventral Method

If your tarantula keeps munching on its molt skin, then the ventral sexing can be done. These refer to inspect of the bottom of the tarantula abdomen, on the area of the Epigastric Furrow which also located between the anterior book lungs. Female tend to have longer curvy Epigastric Furrow while male are shorter and almost a straight line, and the distance between book lung for female is wider than male. This method is not 100% accurate; this is more like comparison method.  You may need certain time of practice, a lot of sexing and a pair of eagle eye or some viewing enhancement tools.

*Dimorphism Method

Sexual Dimorphism can be trace if the spider already in its ultimate molt (Mature male or female) where male can be very differing to female:

Dead Specimen of a 1.0 Psalmopeous irminia

Mating Hooks & Embolus Bulb:

When a male has his ultimate (final) molt and reaches sexual maturity, he will obtain his physical sexual organs. They are Embolus Bulb (some may call it Palpal Bulb, C in the Picture) on the end of his pedipalps that are use to deposit sperm from his sperm web into the female. We usually call it “A pairs of Boxing Glove” in the hobby. Tibial Spur/Tibial Hooks/ Tibial Apophysis or Mating Hooks (A & B in the picture) will be located on both of his bottom side of LEG I’s Tibia (Legs Segment) which are use to hooks up female’s fang during mating. But please note that there are some species which does not acquire mating hooks as it mature. Trivia: Theraphosa blondi don’t have a Mating Hooks, maybe that why they are always cranky...Haha. Some of Avicularia spp does not possess any of Mating hooks, some does, but way too small to notice.

Physical Appearance:

For some specific species or genus, mature females often to have a stockier/larger/heavier/huskier body than the small/thin/undersize mature males. The male’s abdomen is usually smaller and they possessed long leggy legs. Different coloration also occur in some genus or species, for example: Psalmopeous irminia are differ from male and female by coloration, which female are distinguish in color and the male are not.

Sexing a spider can be a lot of fun and pleasurable, why don’t you all give it a try; it’s always surprising to know the sex of your spider, wait for the incoming molt! Get some RM2 magnifying glass or worse, RM XXXX microscope for your aids.  Keeping spiders as pet is not always about having a rare species, but the knowledge and the experience you may obtain from the hobby is what that count. It is PRICELESS!

Now, go do your research and have some fun!

Cheers!

Articles: Scientific Names VS Common Names

Many spiders hobbyist, either newbie or expert, especially who have a conversation with me would be annoyed by me, forcing them to use SCIENTIFIC NAMES over COMMON NAMES. SCIENTIFIC NAMES (Binomial Names) have more advantages rather using COMMON NAMES to describe certain species. COMMON NAMES is not reliable to use, latin names are MUCH EASIER and MORE RESOLUTE. For example, COMMON MISTAKES in describing Malaysian Earth Tiger, which one do u mean? Cyriopagopus thorelli (Simon, 1901) or Cyriopagopus schioedtei (Thorell, 1891)? Isn’t that pain in the abdomen? Worse, both look alike very much to be differentiating by eye. For Your information, C. thorelli is unknown (or at least extremely rare) in captivity, and the species in the pet trade that has often been mistakenly referred to as C. thorelli is actually C. schioedtei. See, the pet trade are already confused..haish.. Let say, someone in Thailand, our neighbor find C. thorelli in the rural area of Southern Thailand, Im very certain the COMMON NAMES will be not Malaysian Earth Tiger maybe proudly RENAME as Danok Earth Tiger perhaps..Haha..

Every recognized/described species on earth (same goes with DINOSAUR and HUMAN) is given a two-part scientific name. This system is called "binomial nomenclature”, or BINOMIAL NAMES. These names are important because they allow people throughout the world to communicate explicitly about animal species, in our community, spiders. This works because there are sets of international rules about how to name animals and zoologists try to avoid naming the same thing more than once, though this does sometimes happen. These naming rules mean that every scientific name is unique. It is common to get confused with similar looking species, for example Grammostola pulchripes and Acanthoscurria musculosa, both rather look the same at a glance. And don’t be surprised if the SCIENTIFIC NAME sometime also describing the species, Grammostola aureostriata (now pulchripes), where aureostriata means “golden stripe” which referring to golden band on Chaco Golden Knee Tarantula (pfffttt!)

Examples of Scientific Classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Arthropoda
Class: Arachnida
Order: Araneae
Suborder: Mygalomorphae
Super Family: Theraphosoidea
Family: Theraphosidae
Subfamily: Theraphosinae
Genus: Theraphosa
Species: Theraphosa blondi

Hence, the binomial names are Theraphosa blondi (Latreille, 1804).

SCIENTIFIC NAMES are also designed to tell you something about the animal's relationships with other animals. The SCIENTIFIC NAMES of each species is made up of a generic name (genus) and a specific name (species). For Example, Xenesthis immanis, Xenesthis is referring to the genus (in Malay: Jenis) and immanis referring to SPECIES, the SCIENTIFIC CLASSIFICATION is in order and it is easy to understand. As a Tarantula hobbyist, our collection mainly under the SUBORDER of Mygalomorphae, but only limited to the SUPER FAMILY of Theraphosoidea and the FAMILY of Theraphosidae,

The SUBORDER of Mygalomorphae consist of large other SUPER FAMILY, for example Ctenizoidea, this is a SUPER FAMILY of a Trap-door Spider.

In the FAMILY of Theraphosidae (yeah, tarantula family), there are other SUBFAMILY that group a lot of GENUS under it, there are:


THERAPHOSIDAE SUBFAMILIES
Acanthopelminae
Aviculariinae
Eumenophorinae
Harpactirinae
Ischnocolinae
Ornithoctoninae
Poecilotheriinae
Selenocosmiinae
Selenogyrinae
Spelopelminae
Stromatopelminae
Theraphosinae
Thrigmopoeinae

Theraphosinae, this is most common GENUS for the New World Tarantula Species belong, at least 40 GENUS are in the FAMILY,

THERAPHOSINAE GENUS
Acanthoscurria
Aenigmarachne
Aphonopelma
Bonnetina
Brachypelma
Bumba Lennoni – New Genus, yes, lennoni after John Lennon (Why tarantula, not beetles?)
Chromatopelma
Citharacanthus
Clavopelma
Crassicrus
Cyclosternum
Cyriocosmus
Cyrtopholis
Euathlus
Eupalaestrus
Grammostola
Hapalopus
Hapalotremus
Hemirrhagus
Homoeomma
Lasiodora
Lasiodorides
Magulla
Maraca
Megaphobema
Melloleitaoina
Metriopelma
Neostenotarsus
Nesipelma
Nhandu
Ozopactus
Pamphobeteus
Paraphysa
Phormictopus
Plesiopelma
Proshapalopus
Pseudhapalopus
Reversopelma
Schizopelma
Sericopelma
Sphaerobothria
Stichoplastoris
Theraphosa
Thrixopelma
Tmesiphantes
Vitalius
Xenesthis

And only few GENUS in this FAMILY is well known in the hobby. Haaa..it a lot cooler and informative to use this method So, this is why you should use the binomial names instead of lousy unworthy confusable (hahaha) COMMON NAME..They are same anywhere in the world, so the risk of miscommunication/error in the SPECIES desired is less significant (lesser, not 0%), especially when you trying to get specific SPECIES from oversea dealer. Names are all one language and usually latin so they are universal for the entire world and all countries use them the same. That way no one organism is named more than one name. It helps classify them better that way and keep their species alike. But yeah, some common or widespread species like OBT, CGK or GBB, is well known for their Acronym. So, it okay to use them rather then lose your tongue to say Chromatopelma cyaneopubescens, use GBB instead...hahahaha..

P/S: Im not Biologist, just an Enthusiast..

Cheerss! (Sky Juice please… Im a Non Alcoholic Muslim..Hahaha)

Articles: Defensive Mechanism

Pissed off young Aphonopelma seemani
(F. O. P-Cambridge, 1897)

Most of keepers especially the newbie sees spiders only as a venomous creatures, unfortunately, that is not the only defensive mechanism build into them. There are several other mechanism that may effectively kick you out from the hobby for lack of knowledge. For New World Species, most of them possessed an extra one or two defenses against its predators (defensive mechanism), Urticating Hair and Poop Cannon. Poop cannon are merely a turd that harmless, which can buy they some time to flee, usually aiming directly to the eyes of its predator. But Urticating Hair can cause some discomfort. Some more than others, ranging from mild itching, burning and rashes. For your information, there are few type of Urticating Hair usually possessed by tarantula:

Type I (0.2-0.6 mm) - The tarantula will also kick hairs with leg IV at the face of predators, usually aiming for the eyes.

Type II (0.5-1.5 mm) - The tarantula must rub its abdomen against its target, which they must made contact to the predetor. (Avicularia spp., Iridopelma spp. and Pachistopelma spp.) Exception for some Avicularia spp. that can kick hair.

Type III (0.3-1.2 mm) - Urticating bristles are most efficient for defense against vertebrates and invertebrates (Type I kicking method). (Theraphosa spp., Nhandu spp., Megaphoboema spp., Sericopelma spp., Eupalaestrus spp., Proshapalopus spp., Brachypelma spp., Cyrtopholis spp., Iracema spp. and other genera of subfamily Theraphosinae)

Type IV (0.06-0.2 mm) - most irritating to mammalian predators. (Type I kicking method)

Type V (???-?? mm) - Urticating bristle is typical of the species of genus Ephebopus spp. They are located on the pedipalps. They are much shorter and lighter in contrast with other types of urticating bristle.

There a some new world species, does not possessed any type of Urticating Hair:

Acanthopelma spp.
Catumiri spp.
Guyruita spp.
Hemiercus spp.
Holothele spp.
Ischnocolus rubropilosus
Oligoxystre spp.
Proshapalopus spp.
Psalmopoeus spp.
Schismatothele spp.
Sickius spp.
Tapinauchenius spp.

For Old World Species, they did not possessed any of these fancy mechanism, they only rely on their speed (e.g: Stromatopelma calceatum are very fast) and very potent venom (e.g: Poecilotheria spp. known for their potent venom) which store beneath their fang. Most of the species, prefer to flee rather than stand in a fight. Note that, there is no such thing as aggressive in tarantula vocabulary, it defensive, which there are actually very fearless species that seeks out a fight, usually when cornered. The only warning that they possessed are the threat pose and some of other species may hiss (e.g: Pelinobius muticus actually hissing) to warn the predator. If the threat pose or hissing doesn't effective, then they will show you their only way to say "fucking leave me" with a quick bite and retreat.

Now you know why they're so serious..=)