A Month of Tarantulas
By Charles Senescall 31 May 2008
Figure 1. Phlogius sp.“Goliath” – immature male (copyright C. Senescall 2008)
Introduction
As a complete newcomer to the hobby of tarantula keeping about the only thing certain so far is that it is a very addictive and engrossing field. Prior to getting started with my first Australian tarantula I ran into Greg Bylund on the Australian Tarantula Association (ATA) web site and was able to obtain a lot of useful information on keeping tarantulas from his web site and forum at The Green Scorpion. My quest for obtaining my very own tarantula had begun in earnest.
I was warned that I wouldn’t be able to stop at one tarantula. Of course I thought this was nonsense. Why would I want more than one tarantula? By the end of my first month in the hobby I now have nine tarantulas. Ok maybe I should pay more attention to these old hands pouring advice down upon me from above.
Genesis
I ordered my first pair of tarantulas from Steve Nunn. Note I said pair. Even before getting my first specimen I was already thinking about the possibility of future breeding prospects. The spiders were juvenile Phlogius sp. “Goliath’s”(Figure 1) and I obtained a male and a larger but still immature female. The rush obtained opening those first two vials containing[S1] their precious occupants was intoxicating. After two weeks I was feeling much more comfortable with the tarantulas and their keeping and decided on 3 Phlogius cf. papuanus slings from Greg Bylund. Again it was a rush opening the vials and studying my second species for the first time. These were quickly followed by 3 Wallace’s Bird Eater slings from Brendan Stent. I thought this should be enough for my first foray into the hobby but then a magnificent immaturePhlogius sp. Stents came up for sale from one of the forum members of The Green Scorpion and as I had already decided this would be my next species I knew I had to have her. She arrived by mail, all 80mm of her, and the largest specimen I had so far. Opening her specimen jar I almost had a heart attack as I took in her size and wondered what they were all going to look like fully grown! This was one chunky girl of impressive girth for a novice keeper. After calming myself I put her into my pre-prepared habitat and have been enjoying her ever since. So much for self restraint. My wife asked if I had enough tarantulas and I promised her I would be buying no more that month. I made that promise on the 30th May. I managed to keep it.
I had subscribed to the ATA and read almost every post. I started asking more questions on the various forums I had joined including the British Tarantula Society (BTS) forum, The American Tarantula Society forum and the Malaysian Tarantula Society forum. I decided to write to the Malaysian Tarantula Society and enquire as to membership of their organisation but did not get a response back from them despite their web site stating they encouraged an international membership. Shelving that idea I decided to go straight to the top and emailed a question to the BTS regarding their 4 unit course in tarantula sexing. I sent three emails to various committee members and did not receive a response after a week so I gave that up as a bad joke, scratched my plans of joining the BTS, and went back to The Green Scorpion Forum and started posting more questions and received good input. I wrote to the owner of the Green Scorpion, Greg Bylund, congratulating him on so quickly developing an active participatory forum devoted to the Australian species. I located the best text I could find on Tarantula sexing (“Sex Determination of Immature Theraphosid Spiders from their Cast Skins” by Kathleen and John Hancock, 1995) and decided to order it online.
I downloaded and read dozens of scientific and general articles concerning tarantulas, taxonomy, the state of the art in DNA analysis of insect species, evolution of spiders, zoology of spiders, sexing juvenile and mature tarantulas – you get the picture. I started analysing the various types of stereo dissecting microscopes that might prove useful in my quest to engage in deeper documentation of my tarantulas as I wanted to be able to sex juveniles and take extreme close up pictures of various features using digital eyepieces. I also wanted to be able to measure the parts of specimens when using a microscope and did some basic research on how to do this as well. My desired equipment list continued to expand. I purchased two texts on tarantula biology and Australian spider species as well as a general text on Australian insects. I wondered if my new hobby was getting out of control but decided to put that matter aside as I had far too much work to do on tarantulas to be able to afford to be side tracked with hypothetical questions. I was beginning to see the basics and realised it was going to take years to accumulate much real knowledge due to the paucity of readily available published information dealing with Australian tarantulas specifically.
I decided to transfer my Australian Goliaths to a larger container after realising that the small plastic “delie” trays that I was using were too small. By now I was more confident handling them with suitable tools and transferred the male using an upturned coke bottle with the bottom removed, a trick I had seen on one of the many web sites I visited. Unfortunately when it came to the female I was a little overconfident and she shot out of her container with incredible speed. Fortunately I was able to manoeuvre her into an empty fish tank and retrieve her safely from there and place her in her new enclosure. I saw how aggressively defensive she could be and also how fast!
Species
I wanted to know much more about the spiders I kept and about the[S2] Australian tarantulas in general and starting working on readings on their taxonomy and classification. I quickly found the 7 Australian species described[S3] (see Table 1) and noted that with the exception of a description of Coremiocnemis tropix by Raven in 2005 no work had been completed on new a newly discovered Australian species descriptionsince 1907 and the work on the original described species since then was very much out of date, and being challenged(note that C. tropix will in all probability be shifted to Phlogius, Nunn 2007 ATA forum post). I needed to get something together in order to at least have a working classification which, although not scientifically valid, would at least enable me to talk about the various species with reasonable confidence that we were all talking about the same thing. I also noted calls from other enthusiasts for something similar. As better placed people for various reasons have not step forward with an updated list I compiled a table of species using names that seemed to be the most commonly accepted by forum members (Appendix 1). The list will be updated form time to time as corrections are notified or new information comes to hand. It almost certainly contains errors and should be used only as a guide at this point. It is hoped that this very rough overview will be of some assistance to new enthusiasts and will save them the many hours of research that were required to simply compile these species lists.
Table 1[S4]Selenocosmia crassipes / (L. Kock, 1874) / S. vulpina synonymous
Selenocosmia stirlingi / Hogg, 1901 / S. stalkeri synonymous
Selenocosmia strenua / (Thorell, 1881)
Selenocosmia subvulpina / Strand, 1907
Selenotholus foelschei / Hogg, 1902
Selenotypus plumipes / Pocock, 1895
Coremiocnemis tropix / Raven, 2005
Table 1. List of currently described Australian species compiled by the author from Platnick’s World Spider Catalog v8.5
Turning specifically to the Phlogiusgroup for no other reason than it is the genus that I started with I have found them to be excellent for a beginner. They are a fast growing group of opportunistic burrowers. The males tend to survive a little longer than usual following their final moult and Greg Bylund reports several instances of Phlogius males surviving for two breeding seasons. One will often see reference made to the Northern and Southern Phlogius groups on enthusiast sites so I thought it would be useful for other beginning and intending keepers to put together a table of these groups for species available relatively commonly in the hobby in Australia.
The Northern and Sothern Phlogiusgroupingsare not based on geographic location per se although Townsville, Queensland is the demarcation of the northern and southern groups. The distinguishing physical characteristics of the groupings are discussed later. Phlogius sp.“Stents” is a species found in Townsville and is regarded as a member of the northern group that occurs at the southern end of the northern species boundary and the northern end of the southern species boundary, that is, right in the middle[S5].
The list below (Table 2) is based on my own research into material appearing in many posts on the ATA forum and The Green Scorpion forum. This table should be regarded as a work in progress. The Phlogius genus is used for all species although it is not official at the moment. Schmidt (1995) resurrected Phlogius, however, it should be noted, that although Dr. Raven (2000)rejected Schmidt’s resurrection he set it aside for Australian species of Selenocosmia pending a cladistic analysis of the group (Raven 2005). Officially however Phlogius remains a junior synonym to Selenocosmia. Since most enthusiasts and amateur researchers such as Steve Nunn refer to the Selenocosmia group as Phlogiusand since Raven in his 2005 paper clearly supports Phlogius as a valid genus (although Schmidt’s attempted resurrection was rejected by Raven as Schmidt did not clearly define the boundaries to describe the genus) that is how I will refer to those species. In addition Selenocosmia stirlingi is likely to be transferred to Selenotholus (Nunn, ATA forum 2006) and I have adopted that classification. The use of Phlogiellus is considered outdated and at present this genus is regarded as occurring only in South East Asia. Until Raven (or someone else) finally sorts out the basic classifications this whole area remains open. As most readers would be aware there are only 7 described species at present (Table 1) thus necessitating the use by the hobby of unofficialLatin names or common names as it races ahead of the mostly very dated published and peer reviewed material. At the very least the hobby can name species to enable some classification based on comments by Raven, Nunn and others and when the matter is resolved appropriate names can be substituted and the entire table no doubt will require revision. Also note that the species themselves are in a state of flux and debate as to whether the Stents, Red Stents and Rubiseta are all synonymous continues. Finally there are several new species that do not appear in the list as they are not available to the hobby in general and they have therefore been excluded. There are also species of which Nunn and others are aware but have not discussed specifically in the public forums. No doubt there are dozens, probably many dozens of new species waiting to be discovered and described.
Table 2
Northern Group:
Phlogius strenuus
Phlogius sp.“Black”
Phlogius sp.“Goliath”
Phlogius cf. papuanus
Phlogius sp. Stents (Townsville - southern end of range of northern group)
Phlogius sp.“Red Stents” (synonymous P. sp. “Rubiseta[S6]”) (but found as far north as Cairns)
Phlogius sp.“pq113” (synonymous with pq118)
Southern Group:
Phlogius crassipes
Phlogius pseudocrassipes
Phlogius vulpina (in synonymy with P. crassipes)
Phlogius subvulpina (incertae sedis according to Steve Nunn)
Phlogius sp.“Eunice”
Phlogius sp.“Sarina”
Phlogius sp. “Rockhampton” (but also found Far North QLD)
Table 2. Northern and Southern groupings of Phlogius species in Australia compiled by author
As to the actual physical characteristics which separate the northern from the southern group if the foveal groove islessin width than the ocular tubercle then the species belongs in the southern Phlogius group. For the northern group the foveal groove is the same size or smaller than the ocular tubercle. Other distinguishing characteristics exist and they may be dealt with in a later article together with generalised working keys for the Australian species.
Conclusion
The first month in the hobby has been a fast and furious journey. There is so much more to write about simply based on the observations of expert enthusiasts and on our own observations and experiences. This short article is intended only as an overview from a beginner’s point of view and I hope to continue with this exciting field for many years to come. Oh yes, and if any reader has a few Phlogius sp.“Black” or strenuus slings available could they please contact me urgently on The Green Scorpion where I use the user name Sen.
Appendix 1–Working Species Listing (Unofficial)
Coremiocnemis Simon, 1892
Coremiocnemis tropix Raven[S7] 2005Dwarf form
Coremiocnemis sp. 2
Phlogius
Phlogius crassipes
Phlogius pseudocrassipesPossible subspecies of P. crassipes
Phlogius cf. papuanus
Phlogius strenuus
Phlogius subvulpinaincertae sedis according to Steve Nunn
Phlogius vulpinaPossible junior synonym to P. crassipes
Phlogius sp. “Black”
Phlogius sp. “Eunice”Possible variant to P. crassipes
Phlogius sp. “Goliath” (Aust Goliath)
Phlogius sp. “pq113” (Blue Leg)synonymouswithP. sp. “pq118”
Phlogius sp. “Red Stents”synonymous with P. sp. “Rubiseta[S8]”
Phlogius sp. “Rockhampton”
Phlogius sp. “Sarina”
Phlogius sp. “Stents” (Stent’s Birdeater)
Selenotholus Hogg, 1902
Selenotholus foelschei Hogg, 1902
Selenotholus stirlinginorth and south forms
Selenotholus sp. “CT”
Selenotholus sp. “Glenelva”
Selenotholus sp. “Gold”
Selenotholus sp. “Townsville”
Selenotholus sp. “Wallace’s Birdeater”
Selenotypus Pocock, 1895
Selenotypus plumipes Pocock, 1895sp. 1 – northern form (Featherleg Tarantula)
Selenotypus sp. “2”
Selenotypus sp. “3”
Selenotypus sp. “4”
Selenotypus sp. “5”
Selenotypus sp. “6”
Selenotypus sp. “7”
Selenotypus sp. “8”
Selenotypus sp. “9”
Selenotypus sp. “10”
Selenotypus sp. “Nebo”southern form – ex S. plumipes
Selenotypus sp. “Gemfields”
Selenotypus sp. “Tahnee”
New Undescribed Genus
“Rattlesnake Tarantula”
Bibliography
1. American Arachnological Society, (2008)
2. American Tarantula Society website and forum, (2008)
3. Arachnology Home Page, (2008)
4. Australian Tarantula Association website and forum, (2008)
5. Australasian Arachnological Society, (2008)
6. British Tarantula Society website and forum, (2008)
7. Bylund, G., The Green Scorpion website and forum, (2008)
8. Foelix, R. F., Biology of Spiders, 2nd edition, Oxford University Press (1996) 213
9. Fossil Groups and The Evolution of Chelicerata, (2008)
10. Malaysian Tarantula Society website and forum, (2008)
11. Platnick, N. I., The World Spider Catalog v8.5,
12. Raven, R. J., A New Tarantula Species from Northern Australia, Zootaxa 1004 (2005) 15
13. Raven, R. J., The Spider Infraorder Mygalomorphae (Araneae): Cladistics and Systematics, Bulletin of The AmericanMuseum of Natural History Vol 182 (1985) 1
Special mention is made of the hundreds of posts by Steve Nunn, Australia on various online forums worldwide which have not been specifically cited and which provided invaluable assistance in the preparation of this article.
[S1]contain should be containing
[S2]delete “the”
[S3]replace “species described” with “described species”
[S4]Add a space under this heading
[S5]Short discussion of P. “Rockhampton” being the only geographic exception and is southern but found in far NQ
[S6]Restore Rubiseta as per later comment
[S7]Insert a comma after Raven
[S8]Restore Rubiseta to list and state possibly synonymous with Red Stents
[S9]Change to University of Bristol