Another addition

Well, it has been a bit since my last post, but you might know that a few days ago, I lost one of my jumping spiders due to an accident while I was chasing it around the counter when the stapler managed to kill it. Funny thing is the next day as I am at my locker, my friend that was in the science lab walks up to me and says he caught a jumping spider. (His locker is next to mine.) I thought that was pretty cool and I thought that he was going to keep it for himself. Instead, the he hands me a plastic sandwich bag and says,"Here's the replacement for the other one," with a smile. I was a bit shocked and at first didn't really see the spider in the bag and thought he was joking. As I looked at it, I realized that there was indeed another spider in the bag. It is a male Phidippus Audax spider that isn't too large, but has fairly long legs. He is a pretty neat little guy. I was also happy that that day was my school's step up day and was a junior for the day, but, I was already a little late and my school does not have anything past sophomore. So I didn't have to worry about him in my locker as I wouldn't be doing anything with my books, so I didn't have to worry about squashing him. Overall, it was a pretty good day and after the day was over, I went into our science lab and added him to a baby food jar which is still in need of replacement with a jar I have at home. So now he is sitting in the lab with the others and I'm sure he will appreciate the upgrade soon.
Sorry about not updating this any sooner. I have been very busy again and life is pretty chaotic. The last thing I need to worry about is a blog and I am trying, but please bare with me until school is out. This year, I have also developed a bit of a hay fever for pretty much the first time in my life, so that is sadly making me more tired and less energetic and productive. But I am trying and will try to get some pictures of the spiders again and load them up here.

Please comment, like, and share this post. It means a lot to me and I want to share my passions with you. So please tell others about this blog. I know spiders aren't supper popular with people, but they really aren't that bad. You just have to start by getting to know a little about them and get used to them. They are pretty awesome creatures. You won't regret it!

Well, long time no see! Three new finds and a couple losses.

Wow! It has been over a month since my last post! Life got pretty hectic as the quarter was coming to an end and I was trying to keep my grades up the best I could. I am also involved in some other activities after school these days and so more of my time is being taken up. I would have loved to blog on some pretty cool moments, but time just ran away and I never really could catch up. And I just came back from spring break and even though I could have caught up on my blogs, I forgot about it all and just laid low the whole break to rest. It was nice to get extra sleep.

So now on to the spiders. A lot and I'm not kidding when I say A Lot, has happened to the spiders. As you might recall, the new addition a couple months ago killed Waffles. That was a sad day and eventually, Marbles was killed as well. This new spider (which I still never got around to naming) has died today in a rather tragic accident. A friend of mine came to the lab this afternoon after school to see the spiders. And I was showing them to him when I decided to open the lid on the big enclosure so we could get a better look at the spider. It ran around the cage for a couple minutes until it darted up and over the side and ran under the counter edge. I got a pencil and coaxed it out and it ran back onto the counter and made its way to the other side of the counter and onto the wall. I stopped it with a catch cup and then got a piece of paper to help keep the spider inside the cup. Of course, it got out and ran towards the stapler on the counter on the other side of a few rolls of paper towel. Then it went to the side that I could not see and when I picked up the stapler to figure out where the spider went, it ran under the stapler to where I could not see and I set the stapler on top of it. And squashed it. The poor thing started to run away as fast as it could, but with it's entrails hanging out of it's rear end, it stopped just after a few seconds and started to curl up into a ball. It was a pretty sad moment as I put it on a piece of paper and carried it to the other end of the counter. (Sigh).

But there is some happy news as well. This morning, just as class was finishing up and our teacher had finished,we were free to have the last couple minutes to do what ever we wanted. So I walked into the lab and as I came up to the counter, a little fuzzy ball scurried across the window sill and under the ledge. I got my teacher's attention and he came to help me get the little guy. And now he has taken the space of the other spider which is now dead. Just a couple minutes ago, I witnessed him sneak up on and take out a dead cricket. (Yeah, I need to clean their containers out). It was pretty comical to see a live one hanging on one of the Styrofoam cup rings. A minute later, he grabbed the live one. 

And I must say that I feel pretty foolish for thinking that all these spiders were females when in reality, they were all juvenile males, although if Marbles and Waffles really were juveniles males, I am not completely sure, but it is very likely. Each one has molted except for the newest catch today which does have his manly palps. And the other two have gotten to be little monsters. They are all about 7 cm in leg span. They look awesome. I think I will be naming them soon, so stay tuned as I now have some more free time for blogging and hope to get around to posting some pictures and names of the new guys. ( I did manage to get some pictures of the one who was killed today, so those and the others will be posted hopefully this weekend.)

Thanks for checking out this blog and sorry it has been so long. I will try to do better next time and if you have any questions or comments, please feel free to post them below and I will do my best to get back to you as soon as I possibly can. 

^oOO^{o   ~JUMPING SPiDER~}

WOW! This is an interesting week.

Well, I have some very interesting news to share with you all. First off, the Platycryptus Undatus has passed away. I'm sorry that I didn't get the pictures of it up like I said I would, but I have been pretty busy and just never was able to get around to it. So for those of you who wanted to see it, you will have to go Google a picture of the Platycryptus Undatus to see what they look like. Mine looked like the ones you will find, so now you know what they look like. Pretty simple in designes and the spider itself isn't really pleasing to look at. But they are very difficult to find so long as they aren't on a red brick wall, which is pretty much how I caught mine. But now she is dead. It was short lived, but fun to have. Yeah, this doesn't look like a memorial that I created a couple days ago about Waffles, but this spider wasn't very close to me as I never did anything to it except feed it.

Now for the good news. Or shall I say awesome news! Two more Phiddipus Audax spiders have been added to the club. And both were caught this afternoon. One in the library during a class and the other in the lab while looking at the previous new find. And they are both big. Both in body size and leg span, not to mention the size of their legs. Much stockier and heavier in build. And they are females. Haven't found any males yet and I suppose they won't be showing up yet for a couple more months. This week and last week where I live has been really warm, very unusual for this time of year. So it is no surprise to find two spiders on a nice, sunny, cloudless, warm day. However, they were both found indoors. But that doesn't make much of a difference. The big connection though is that they were found by windows; the first one was on the window when I went to adjust the blinds, which was in direct sunlight, and then the other was found hidding on the edge of a sink plug next to the sink in the science lab, also pretty close to the window. Yup. Warmth plus lots of objects to hide near equals spiders--preferably jumping spiders. And somehow they have all managed to survive on the random flies that are randomly flying around the school. It is pretty funny to walk into the lab and find a dead, half-shriveled-up fly. Haha! There is a jumping spider nearby! :)

Thanks for checking out this post. Please hit the follow button and if you have any questions or comments, please leave them below and I will get back to you as soon as possible. Pictures of these guys will be posted soon. And a video featuring Marbles and the other new spider from a couple days ago. (Yes, I need to name them. Just kinda lost tract when Waffles died.)

R.I.P Waffles-- You will be missed. And hello to the newest addition... (again)

Well, the title kinda says it all. It is a sad day in the epic world of Epic Spiders. The awesome Waffles was killed on February 14, 2014. Time is unknown. I walked in on the scene this morning to find that a new P. Audax spider was discovered this morning running around on the counter and my teacher managed to catch it and put it in the cage with the other two. It turns out that it was hungry. Very hungry. And so it grabbed Waffles. My class that I have is just before noon, which is just before lunch. It was a bit of a startling discovery to see that, after I picked the cage up to see where everybody was, a spider had another one in it's jaws. At the moment, I don't really know who I thought it was as I am writing this at 9:30 in the evening and don't really remember it all that well. But I remember running out out of the lab into the classroom and told my teacher that there was another spider in the cage and either it was eating somebody or somebody got it. He followed me back to the enclosure and was also surprised to see the dead spider. Then after some more careful investigating, (like almost turning the whole thing over and looking underneath to get a better look at the spiders. Everything is "glued" down by the silk that they leave everywhere, so their stuff almost literally stays in place) ,to my dismay, I made the awful discovery that it was Waffles who was being eaten. And I noticed that it was indeed the new spider.
This new spider is pretty much like Marbles. Very similar in size and pretty much the only way to tell who is who is that the new one has slightly faded orange markings on it's abdomen whereas Marbles' markings are much sharper and brighter. The new spider I think is already going to be a problem and I will be curious to see who will be left on Tuesday when I return to school. I already caught them in threat postures towards each other a couple times on video and will be posting them soon. I also have a couple shots of the body of Waffles. Sadly, they aren't of very good quality as I shot everything with my iPod Touch 5 gen. But they are interesting and after school, my teacher and I were messing around with a couple microscopes so we could get some good up close looks at Waffle's hair, eyes, and fangs. It was very interesting.
So this has been a very interesting day. I am sad and yet happy that there is a new addition to the group. Who knows. One of them could be dead by Tuesday and we will be back to square one. (Almost. I forgot about my Platycryptus Undatus. It is doing well. More on it later. It helps that it is living in its own separate container.) This is spiders we are working with, so it is really amazing that Marbles and Waffles actually lasted as long as they did. I did not expect this to happen this way, but I knew it was a possibility from the beginning. It just took forever to happen and so it is a greater shock to me. But its life and this happens all the time, everywhere in the world where there are spiders. Yep, sad fact.

Thanks for checking this post out. If you have any questions or comments, please leave them in the comments section below and I will get back to you as soon as I can. And please don't forget to click on the "follow" button. Thank you.

******************************************************************************************
----------------------------------------------RIP Waffles---------------------------------------------
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Pictures of Waffles

~JUMPING SPiDER

Another Addition to the Group

Today, I caught another jumping spider. And it is not an other Phiddipus Audax, but a Platycryptus Undatus. It is about the size of Waffles, and is similar in color, but lighter. I found her today when I was helping prepare my school's gym for a festival this weekend. She was at the back doors of the gym, clinging to the wall between the two double doors. She was pretty much frozen, and could hardly move. I brought her back to the lab and put her on the counter, and blew some warm air over her. Then I found a beaker and set it over the top of her to keep her from escaping. She stayed there until after school was out, about a half hour later, and was then put into a pickle jar that my teacher had in the lab. I went outside and got some rocks and small peices of bark and then put her in it. She climbed under a rock. I went and got a cricket and put in there with her and then we watched her watch it and then she just stayed away from it. About ten minutes before I started this blog, I went in to check on her and so far, the cricket is still alive. I think the new spider has some thawing out to do still, but she can run backwards pretty quickly, something I have yet to see Marbles or Waffles do.

Something else of interest is that I found a body of a Phiddipus Audax a couple feet away at the edge of a sink. Yes, it is a whole body, not a molt. :( My teacher was wondering if it is Marbles 1.0. He still thinks that it is possible that Marbles (the current one) is Marbles 2.0 and that I just found the first one, the one that got away from me just right before Thanksgiving break. It is amazing that if it is the first one and that there were more than one (and probably still are more somewhere), that it survived that long. I know I didn't see that body the other day, and for the last couple weeks, I have been in and out of that lab about as much as my teacher has been. (He is probably in there a bit more than me, but it is close.) (We don't have classes that require us to use it all the time, so it would seem that nobody else goes in there much. And we have spider haters, so they avoid it now that they know that the spiders are there.) So it is a very interesting find. I'm sad about it, but it is life and I can't save every single one that I find. And I'm fine with that. Infact, I don't want to save every single spider I find. It's just a hobby to me and having a few around is fun, but filling the whole room would drive my teacher mad and it would be just too much to handle. Plus, he would run out of crickets really, really fast. He has been kind enough to let me take a couple baby crickets from his cricket stash (for the rest of his own critters) and feed my spiders once a week. I don't think I will have any more spiders. Maybe one if I can find one, but that is pretty rare right now, although odd things happen, like the one today. 

I enjoy this hobby and would encourage you to go out and find a spider and learn about it. And if you find a jumping spider, that is great, but try to find something else. There are thousands of them out there, and you will mostly find the biggest, most common ones near you. But try to look for the spiders that nobody else has found. New spiders are being found constantly and who knows, you could become one of them. That would be pretty awesome. 

This has been Jumping SPiDER and I would like thank you for checking out this blog. I hope you enjoyed it and if you have any questions, comments, or almost anything that has to do with this blog, please leave it in the comment area below and I will do my best to get back to you. :) 

^oOO^o

Awesome pictures of Marbles and Waffles.

Here are some pretty cool pictures of Marbles and her new cage mate, Waffles. Yeah, I know you're probably going "Waffles?? WTH man?!" Haha. Marbles is bad enough, but I decided to name them something random. It could be worse.

The smaller, brown jumping spider is Waffles and she is a Phiddipus Audax like Marbles. I haven't seen a brown Phiddipus Audax before, so it had me thrown for a minute. She has the same markings too, although the orange on her back is a bit faded. I think she could be a bit younger than Marbles, but I don't really know for sure. 

Sorry if any of these photos are really fuzzy, especially the ones at the end of Waffles. She is fuzzy, but my iPod Touch camera is obviously no high end camera, so please bare with me!

The jumping spider on the top is Waffles while the other one barely hiding under the cup bottom is Marbles.

The smaller spider facing the camera is Waffles. The big black one is Marbles.

Uh oh! Marbles is sizing up her dinner...

"NO!! I'm telling you! Go away or I will be forced to use these!" Marbles isn't happy at the sight of Waffles.

"Ok, I will go now."

Or not. Look at Marbles fangs spreading apart!

Marbles: "Fine, if you're not going, then I will!" And she really did try to get away. But I stopped her from climbing over the side of the cage and she abruptly made a dive for the bottom of the enclosure.

Now it looks like Waffles is going to fight back. Luckily, they never did.

"...Yeah! That's it! Run!!"

Here is Waffles. I left the lid open on the enclosure and she climbed to the top of the styrofoam-cup-ring-jungle-gym and just sat there. I was really happy to get the pictures and she was more than willing to cooperate. Something Marbles rarely does when she gets to the top of the cup rings.

I moved my finger around just a few inches in front of her and she followed my every move. And then she turned toward the iPod just like I was hoping she would do! I love that face! Hahaha! :)

"...Wow! That human's finger is huge! Should I run??" Thankfully, she decided I wasn't doing anything to her and she just stayed there.

Watching my teacher clean out his turtle's "play bin". (He uses it to feed his turtle so that it helps keep his aquarium cleaner.)

That is one cute spider and she was really enjoying the view of my school's science lab. I think that she is a quite a bit more docile than Marbles and even though she can really move like other jumping spiders, she tends to be a bit slower and not so quick to just take off. I was also handling her before I took these pictures and she was happy to come out and climb all over my hands and arms. So far, she and Marbles are getting along in there enclosure and I will be keeping them until they die or summer break arrives--hopefully the latter. I will try to get some pictures of the back of her abdomen so you can see that she is a Phiddipus Audax, or something very similar. Like I said above, I have never seen a brown one before, as all I have seen are black ones. But either way, she is an awesome spider and I will be posting more blogs of her and Marbles in the future, so please look forward to them! 

If you think that you would like to have a jumping spider as a pet, you can't easily go wrong with them. They are really easy to take care of and so much fun to play with so long as they aren't too defensive. If you want, I can make a care sheet in the future if anybody would like one. I really didn't know a whole lot about how to care for them even after I caught Marbles. It has taken some research, and experience to figure out what they like to do and what they eat. I won't go into this any further as it looks like I will do a care sheet anyway. There is also a blog I posted a while ago about someone who pretty much made one from their experiences. 

Hope you enjoyed the blog and if you have any questions, please leave them below and I will do my best to get back to you as soon as I can.

The Bagheera Kiplingi

My second blog a while back was on some pretty crazy spiders and one of them was the Bagheera kiplingi. This is a pretty cool spider because one, it is a jumping spider and two, it is a vegetarian! Well, for the most part. 90% of it's diet is just plant matter, but I will get to that in a minute. They get their names from the characters in the book, Rudyard Kipling's Jungle Book.The Bagheera kiplingi is named after Bagheera, the black panther, while the species is in honor of Kipling himself. Other salticid genera with names of Kipling's characters are Akela, Messua and Nagaina. All four were named by George and Elizabeth Peckham in 1896.

They are found in the Central Americas and Mexico. They mostly inhabit Mimosaceae trees, primarily the Vachellia, where they consume specialized protein- and fat-rich nubs called beltian bodies, which make up about 90% of the spider's diet. The spiders actively avoid the ants guarding the beltian bodies which also use the bodies for food. The spiders also eat nectare and will ocassionally steal larvae from the worker ants. The spiders will also cannibolize other B. kiplingi, especially during the dry seasons. Despite the occasional consumption of meat, the spiders' tissues have been found to exhibit isotopic signatures typical of herbivorous animals, implying that most of their food comes from plants. The mechanism by which they process and ingest the beltian bodies, is still unresearched. The vast majority of spiders liquify their prey using digestive enzymes before sucking it in.

While they are pretty much antisocials like other spiders, hundreds of them can be found in a single tree, usually twice as many females to males. They are found to be somewhat quasisocial as adult females have been found to guard clutches or hatchlings. 

These are pretty awesome spiders and I really think that it is odd that a spider consumes mostly plant matter for its diet. While it does consume the occasional spider, they aren't like any other spider that eats only meat. They are probably one of my favorite jumping spiders that you can find and I really think that they eat plant matter is pretty cool. I have read that other jumping spiders have been found to enjoy nectar while sitting in a flower waiting for a bee or other flower wandering insect to pass by. So finding a spider that is almost totally vegetarian is a little surprising, to me it isn't really as I have already known that other species enjoy similar things. They must have a sweet tooth.



Thanks for checking this blog out! If you have any questions or comments, please leave them below and I will do my best to get back to you as soon as possible. 

Another Update on the Jumping Spiders

Well, it is two days later and I have some pretty good news to share with you all. Yesterday, I found another jumping spider in the lab just above Marbles on the window sill. I really didn't notice it until I started to move Marble's cage around and then something black and fuzzy moved out of the corner of my eye. Yay! Another one. I had to leave it as my class was just starting, and I would be back to get it later. Luckily, it stayed in that area until I got back after school was out. It is another Phiddipus Audax like Marbles, but is a bit smaller and this one is brown-ish. Same markings, but they are more of a tan pale color than a bright orange like Marbles. And it is a female. It was decided that she go in the cage with Marbles along with three crickets. I have some pictures of them interacting with each other, luckily they weren't violant, but were very aware that the other one was there and they often threw threat postures while waiting for the other spider to strike. I am happy to say that they seem to be getting along with each other for the most part, but a cricket was gone when I came into the lab today. It had better be a cricket and not each other. I am going to have to be more aware of their abdomen sizes and when they each had a cricket last as to make sure they won't go hunting each other down. It is exciting for me to have two of them and even though I would love to have more, I think that two is plenty for this size of cage, as adding another one to the mix could bring great stress on the other spiders and one or more could end up dying. The good thing is that they are females and they can't have spiderlings together and I am glad for that as I don't have to keep track of lots and lots of baby spiders. They are fun to have around in there enclosure and I am glad that they will be allowed to stay around until summer break starts. They are both pretty young yet and I think that they newest one is even younger. So they should last a while.

I haven't come up with a name for the new spider yet, so if you have any ideas, please feel free to tell me what you think would suit the new one best.

Thanks for checking this blog out! If you have any questions about this blog, spiders, or anything else that you want an answer to (I would prefer that it be somewhat related to this blog), please leave it in the comment sections below and I will try to get back to you as soon as possible.

Other awesome blogs to check out!

Bills Cars and Computers
Graspvitality
Nathan3000368

Pictures will be posted later. I did attempt to take some yesterday, but they were kinda blury and I think that I will try to get some better ones. Jumping spiders aren't the easiest to film!

Update on Pet Jumping Spiders, Both at Home and at School. And HELLO TO 2014!!

Well, Christmas break is over and it is time to get back into the everyday grind. I had a good break and hope you did too. I wish it was longer, but then it would be harder to go back. As for the spiders, they are doing pretty well and I highly doubt they have noticed any difference in the daily routines. Marbles has built herself a whole lot of webbing all around the cage now and she even made another nesting spot on one of the Styrofoam rings. She seems happy and is doing pretty well. Devouring crikets and running about her enclosure, then watching as I walk up to her, and open the lid. She will either run for cover under the cup bottom or try to make a brake for it. Of course, she isn't fast enough and I blow a little air on her and she drops to the floor and runs for the other side. This went on for a few minutes today before she scrunched her legs up and just waited for me to go away.

The other little spiders that I have at home are doing pretty well so far. I sadly don't have anything I can feed them, so I will most likely be putting them outside this evening when I get home. They do seem to be bored except chase each other around in the jar. There are three of them now and if you saw the post I made the other night, you will know about the first two. During dinner, which was after that post, I saw another one wandering along the wall and ceiling and had to catch it before one of my parents disposed of it. It is the smallest out of the group, each of them are most likely juviniles which happen to be not more than a couple months at the most in age. Each of them is small enough that if they would sit still and not try to eat each other for just a minute, I could easily fit them on my thumb nail. However, if they are adults of some micro dwarf species, they are impressive. I think they are the cutest jumping spiders you could ever see apart from the Peacock Spiders, which happen to be about the same size. I did try to take pictures of these little guys, but I couldn't get my camera to focus on them very well, and they moved way to quickly.

Thanks for checking out this blog! If you have any questions or comments, please leave them below and I will do my best to get back to you as soon as I can.

Other awesome blogs to check out:

Bills Cars and Computers
Graspvitality
Nathan3000368

Jumping spiders

I have two little jumping spiders right now, although they won't get to stay the night. I was in my room when I got a call from my mom that "two of my little friends" were hanging out on the ceiling in the dining room. She wanted them dead, but I insisted on keeping them a little bit. She let me get a jar from the garage and put them in it. One has been chasing the other one around a bit, so I can assume that one is a girl and the other is a boy. I don't know what species they are as they are very small, and I would post pictures, but my iPod won't focus on them for more than a fraction of a second. They are both fairly dark in color, almost brown and grey, but they have a light tan underside with dark legs with faint yellow stripes. They are pretty cute. 

Here's some cool videos about jumping spiders

I enjoy watching Youtube videos and in fact, too many of them. But most of them are videos about spiders, like tarantulas and jumping spiders. A good channel for any spider enthusiast is Bob the Spider Hunter on Youtube. He covers all sorts of things about spiders and has many videos about jumping spiders. When they are out, he catches them and talks about them. He also really enjoys other spiders, like orb weavers, wolf spiders, and many others. He also has a tarantula, although you don't get to see it very much. He seems to like the jumping spiders the most (I haven't found any other spider that is so awesome! :) ) as his channel has more videos about jumping spiders and his experiences with them. I usually get my ideas and information from them and they are helping a lot. He has videos on how to care for them (other spiders included), spiderlings, mating, food--pretty much everything about them. Some of them are the his Jumping Spiders Part (1-3) with Bob, the spider hunter. I recommend them all in this series. He also covers what males and females do in his 2 video series Girl meets Boy! These are pretty entertaining videos with narrating subtitles at the bottom along with some romantic music. The second video is pretty funny. (A bit of caution is suggested on the second one especially for young children.) You will find in some videos that he posted later showed that both matings were successful and that they got eggs sacks. All four spiders are Phiddipus Audax in these videos as he will talk about.

Thanks for checking out this blog. I hope you enjoyed it and if you have any comments or questions, please leave them below.

Update on Marbles

Marbles, my pet female Phiddipus Audax jumping spider is doing well so far. She is still, well, as far as I can tell, happy in her enclosure. She can always see me when I come into the room and she will run backwards, upside down, fall off her ceiling, and run for her overturned cup bottom before I can get within two feet of her. That is the awesome eye sight of the jumping spider at work for ya, that's for sure. Then there are days like today, when she sees me and just turns her whole body or cocks her head to one side or the other and waits for me to open the top so she can try to make a break for it. I just blow a little bit on her and she usually jumps in such a goofy way that she lands on her back and then falls to the bottom of her cage. She then ran to the side so she could look up at me and just sat there. It is fun to do and really she is okay when she falls. They are small enough and light enough that a fall of more than a few feet without a safety line wont hurt them.
I hope to get a feeding video of her tomorrow, and I will post that as soon as I can. I want to make sure that she gets a cricket before I leave on vacation so that it will last her the whole time. On Friday, class Christmas parties will be going on and I will most likely forget about her and I really don't want to do that. I can't guarantee that she will eat right away tomorrow, so if she does, I will post a video. If not, I won't. (I'll just leave the cricket in there with her anyway. She will eat in a day or two after it being in there.) And hopefully, the cricket will be in a spot where she will actually jump on the cricket and not just creep up on it and then pounce the shortest possible distance. It is cool to see, but a big, deadly, accurate jump is so much more entertaining. Haha.

Thanks for checking out this post. If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to leave them in the comment section below and I will get back to you as soon as I can.

Do You Have a Favorite Tarantula? What is it?

As you might know, especially from my previous post, I love tarantulas. I really don't know why, but I just do. Maybe it's all that fuzz covering them or maybe it is because they have eight legs and are bigger versions of the other spiders that I really like. Either way, they are really awesome and there are a couple that I would love to tell you about. And yes, I do have more than one "favorite". Many of them are just the color combinations and others are the size and the more mellow nature of the tarantula's species. I am already making plans on what tarantulas I will be getting in the future and which ones I will stay away from, which happen to be the faster, more venomous ones. Many of them are very pretty, but if they get away, Look out! They can't kill you, but for the Poecilotheria species, they have a bite that is very, very painful and at times, it will probably make you wish you were going to die than not. There is a few videos of Rob C., who has been tagged by a couple of his Poecilotheria spiders before and wasn't doing too good for a few days. You must remember, (even more so with species like these), handle tarantulas with care. Any tarantula, even the calmest, nicest ones out there, can still bit you if they feel they need to. So please treat them with respect. Rob wasn't treating his spiders in any way that could harm them. He was trying to mate a male and female and the female went after the male. Rob tried to intervene and the female got his wrist. (It wasn't really a smart thing to do, but he loves his spiders so much that he is willing to risk the bite to save the other one, if possible.)
So, now to my personal favorites. I really like the Brachypelma species, like the B. Emilia, the Smithi, Boehmei, and Auratum. The colors is what really draws me to them. The reds, oranges, yellows, whites, and browns are just stunning, especially when you have a freshly molted tarantula. The Brachypelmas also tend to be a bit more docile than most other tarantula species and the famous B. Smithi (Mexican Red Knee) is a really popular choice among beginners and experts. However, like most other Brachys, they tend to flick hairs like crazy and some individuals are horrible. Each spider will react differently to you when you get near it, but Brachypelmas are pretty well know for this. Any tarantula found in the Americas, North, Central, and South, tend to be hair flickers with less potent venom. They also tend to be slower and less willing to bite. Other tarantulas found mostly in the Asias are fast, and their venom is quite potent. However, they don't kick hairs.

Another favorite species of mine is the Poecilotheria. They are very, very beautiful and are really fun to look at. Like the P. Metallica. It is a tarantula with an amazing dark blue color pattern with the yellow under their leg joints that are typical with Pokies. I think this is the prettiest tarantula you will ever see. When I first sawa  picture of one, I thought it was photoshopped. However, upon more research, I found out that it was indeed a real tarantula and a real beauty at that. These are however from the Poecilotheria species which means that they are very fast, their venom is very potent, and they are expensive! I have seen prices for baby 1/4 inch slings for over $200. And the full grown 6 inch females are more than double that! Yeah, really pricey for something so pretty. I however, wouldn't want to own one mainly because if it escaped, it would be hard to capture without getting bitten or having it bite one of my other pets. Yep, I'll let other people have them and I'll enjoy them on Youtube. Other really nice ones are the Ornata, Fasciata, Miranda, Regalis, and Subfusca.

And my most favorite tarantula is the Euathlus sp. Red, which is also known as the sp. Orange or Yellow. It's really the exact same tarantula, but some are more red, orange, or yellow depending on the individual spider. These are known to be the best beginner tarantula because they are really gentle for those of us who like to handle them and their venom is very weak and won't hurt humans. They do have urticating hairs because they are found in Chile and like I said above, if they are found in the Americas, they will have these hairs. Another awesome thing about them is that they only grow to 3 to 3.5 inches in leg span. So they are really quite small compared to other tarantulas which for some people, really like to have a small spider. They are also known to be very friendly and any time their own opens the cage, the tarantula immediately starts to walk out and act as if it wants to be handled. It is still up for debate on whether tarantulas like to be handled and if it is good for them, but so far, these little guys tend to "like" the attention.You can get an off one that will deffensive towards you when you want to handle it and you should just leave it be. But over all, they are said to be awesome for the beginner. Their only downside is that because they are so small, they eat very little and tend to eat every couple months instead of weeks like bigger sized tarantulas.

Do you have a favorite tarantula or more? What is it and why? I would love to hear about what you think and if you have any and what they are and why you like them. So please leave you comments below and if you have any questions, I will try to get back to you as soon as possible.

Other awesome blogs to check out: (don't have anything to do with tarantulas)

Bills cars and computers
Graspvitality
Nathan3000368

Awesome Youtube Channels for the Tarantula Addict!

I love tarantulas. They are just so fascinating to me. I would love to have one (actually, more :) ), but my parents don't like them and so I am going to have to live without them. But they haven't said anything about me watching Youtube videos on them. In fact, they don't mind it and it allows me to enjoy them at someone else's expense. My favorite channel for tarantulas is Jon3800. He is one of the top followed tarantula keepers in the world next to Rob C. or Tarantulaguy1976, especially in the USA and Canada. They are both highly respected by the Youtube community and many people go to them (including me, many times) for information about how to care for them, the different types and if they are good as pets, for the noobs or the experts and so on. I have watched almost all of their videos from both channels, Jon3800 more than Rob C as Rob is currently in the process of building a new home (at least he was the last time I checked) and hasn't really had a chance to make any new videos on his tarantulas. If anybody is interested in getting a tarantula or getting ready to add another one to your collection, these guys are who I would go to.
Watch many of their videos and get a feel for what tarantula keeping is all about. Jon3800 has videos on many of the different species that he currently has and makes what he calls "Mythbuster" videos where he talks about a certain tarantula or tarantula species. These are usually his more interesting videos, and they are filled with almost all of the information to you need to know about a tarantula. However, I wouldn't recommend skipping his other videos either, as he will sometimes add to or update bits and pieces of his "mythbusters" from time to time and you most likely won't want to miss out on what he has to say.
Another greatly respected tarantula keeper is in the UK and he goes by Dan Oakley. I haven't seen as many of his videos as I have Jon's and Rob's, but he has been referred to by Jon3800 a few times and many other people love his videos too. I think you couldn't go wrong if you follow him.
These guys are the "go-to" people and if you have any questions concerning tarantulas, they would be the people to search for and ask. I don't usually trust the pet store sites as much as they do tend to give you false information more often than not as I have heard from other people's experiences.

Thanks for checking out this blog! I hope you enjoy it and if you have any questions or comments concerning this blog, please leave them below. If you have any questions or comments concerning tarantulas, check these guys out. (Jon would probably be your best bet if you need an answer soon as he tends to be faster at responding.)

Other awesome people to check out (that don't have anything to do with tarantulas):

Bills cars and computers
Graspvitality
Nathan3000368

UPDATE: Jon 3800 also has feeding videos about twice a month as he all of his tarantulas, scorpions, and yes! jumping spiders! These are always worth checking out. 

More pictures of Marbles.

Here are some more pictures, again taken with my iPod Touch. Marbles was in a bit of a frantic mode today as she was trying her best to hide from me. What I got here isn't too bad. 

Here is her kritter keeper. The little black dot in the very bottom right is her. There will be some science equipment in the background as there really wasn't any good place to put her cage. 

Whenever I take pictures, she has to turn and stare. I was hoping to get a good shot of the top of her abdomen so you could see her markings. 

I'm not sure if she was getting ready to jump or what, but her front legs are up. Maybe she's trying to wave! :)

Of course, she finally got scared and ran to hide under the styrofoam ring, but her curiosity got the better of her and she had to see what I was up too. :)

This one is through the side of the cage. She had turned around after the previous picture because of the flash and is hanging upside down waiting for me to go away. 

Well, she is on the other side of her cup ring and is really wanting me to leave. Haha. At least she was willing. 

Thanks for checking this post out and I hoped you enjoyed the pictures. If you have any suggestions, comments, or questions, please feel free to leave them below and I will try to get back to you as soon as I can. 

I hope to get some pictures of her in my hand sometime, but she is really fast. I'm usually lucky to get the shots that I am getting.

She's back!

Marbles is back in her cage. My teacher found her today and put her back in her critter keeper. She is in worse condition than I thought as her abdomen is much smaller than I thought it was when I saw her the other day. I'm just glad that she is still alive and of course, throwing threat postures at the pencil. Luckily not my fingers, but she just doesn't like the pencil. And it is too bad as it is really helpful to have something small enough it fit into her cage and move her around a bit. But I guess that I have invaded her space too much with it and I can't blame her for getting upset. I'm going to have to remember to leave her alone a lot more. I guess I'm really happy she is back. Haha. I am amazed that she is back as soon as she is. Maybe she decided to take her thanksgiving break sooner than I did.

Daniel Jones has been wanting more pictures of her and her enclosure. I'll try to get some up for him and the rest of you to enjoy pretty soon. 

Marbles update!

Well, it is December 2, 2013 and I spotted Marbles today in the science lab! A friend of mine and I tried to capture her, but she ran back under the rail in the sliding window. She seems to be fine for the most part and her abdomen appeared to be full. I was hoping to put her back in the cage, but I will have to wait for a while until she comes back out into a more open area to catch her. I will let you know when I see her next and if I am able to capture her again.

Marbles is gone!

Well, I was hoping against hope that this wouldn't happen, but it did. Marbles, my female Phiddipus Audax jumping spider, is gone. I was going to do this on the previous post, but I decided against it. Luckily, this doesn't mean dead, but she is no longer in her little critter keeper. My teacher found her lid slightly ajar the other morning with her obviously not there. She seemed pretty happy in there. Now being a spider, should would have reasons to leave that I, a human, wouldn't understand, but she did have it pretty good in there. She had a pretty nice cricket once a week, some water, and a few places to hide and be a jumping spider. I don't really get why she would want to leave. I don't really know what to do at the moment as she could pretty much be anywhere in the science lab or for that matter, my school. She does have more than plenty of spaces to hide out, but there are only other spiders for food and I know that most jumping spiders can get other spiders if they are desperate enough. I just hope she is okay and will turn up in a few months so I can put her back. But if I never see her again, that is that. Farewell Marbles! You will be missed! (You can find pictures of her on my previous post.)

Pictures of my female Phiddipus Audax, Marbles.

She is doing pretty well so far. These aren't the best, as they were shot with my iPod Touch, but that is what has been available to me. She is pretty awesome.

You will see that the white thing that Marbles is sitting on is a cut up Styrofoam cup that has been put together with some pieces of wood. Sorry these weren't up sooner.

Thanks for checking this blog out. If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to leave them in the comment section below and I will try my best to answer them. 

Here are some other really awesome blogs to check out:

Bills cars and computers

Graspvitality

Nathan3000368's Game reviews

The Peacock Spider

The Peacock Spider is a jumping spider. Of course, it is probably the most awesome jumping spider in the world. (And it is found only in Australia). Now, you must be wondering what a peacock spider is, right? If you think about it, it's name suggests what it is. And it is obviously a jumping spider, but what it can do is not done by any other spider or any other creature but the peacock itself. Peacock spiders obviously need to find a mate and the only way jumping spiders get mates is to try to attract their attention. The way male jumping spiders get a females attention is by taking their front legs and waving them around. They also vibrate their bodies which the females pick up on. When a male runs into another male, they will pretty much do what rams or sheep do; butt their faces into each other with their legs raised to see who is bigger. They do this a few times, and then they kind of fight a little until the smaller spider leaves. The bigger one keeps on going about life, as usual. And the peacock spiders do the same thing. But they also do what peacocks do; they raise their feathers and spread them out (or abdomens in this case and hair) and they dance around a bit to get the attention of the female. They do this dance until the female decides that the male can mate with her. This will usually last just a moment before the male must jump away as fast as he can, or the female will eat him, like all other spiders.

It is very entertaining to watch them dance around like they do. Here is a video that shows them doing the courtship dance by Jurgen Otto (I highly recommend watching all of the other videos too). He is the only photographer in the world to have photographed and taken video of them. And this is his Flikr page to see all of his pictures! If you have seen them before, you will know how small they are. They are not your average sized jumping spider which is about 5 cm, but they are about 4 to 5 mm in size! Yes! Very small! How he does the amazing videos while keeping track of them when they jump away is beyond me. Most jumping spiders don't like to be played with or have humans around too much as I learned this recently while my teacher and I took pictures of my pet. It wouldn't sit still for anything. So I can imagine that it takes him several weeks before he can get enough for a six minute video.

Thanks for checking out this blog. Sorry it has been a few days since the last post, but I am really busy and I hope to have a bit more time in the future to keep up with the blogs. These are really awesome spiders and if you have any questions or just want to share what you think of these epic spiders, please feel free to put a comment below this blog.

Other awesome blogs to follow:
Bills cars and computers
Graspvitality
Nathan3000368