Green bottle blue Tarantula

[jaleely]

Playing with my juvenile green bottle blue tarantula. He's pretty darn tame!

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Here's a photo of some photos i took of our tarantulas a long time ago lol...our old adult green bottle blue in the bottom left corner, so some of of you will see how it will look when grown!

http://i1143.photobucket.com/albums/n640/jaleely/Photo2710.jpg

[GarterPython]

He looks awesome.

[jaleely]

lol thanks, i fixed it! =P

[GarterPython]

I edited mine to. Its like it never happened. ;)

[SpOoKy]

He looks around the same age as mine...but I don't touch my T's lol :)

[jaleely]

You know, i try to handle them all if i can. I have a starburst that is really lovely...but our mexican red knee is so vicious! She's down right aggressive. We had a skeleton knee that was Meeeeean! He lived a year past when he should have died, he was such a tough little bugger. Had his pedipulps and just kept hanging on. He had one extra shed, but was nasty to the end!

Our rose hair is a sweetheart...she was given to me, too! Someone just gave her away. Oh well my win!

The other one i have trouble with is the choco golden knee....every time i touch that one i itch. So, even though i want to make it nice and used to handling, i am just too sensitive to it's hairs.

[jaleely]

I will admit that sometimes i use knitted gloves. There's just something about holding the weight and their tiny sticky feet of these large spiders that is really cool : )

[Skits]

I never realised how bad I was with common tarantula names, I didn't know what he was until I looked it up and found the scientific name :p The C.cyaneopubescens is actually on my wish list! :) Very pretty T! I love the little hairs on his abdomen :p

[alessia55]

Dare I ask... what on earth are those ungodly little pointy things on its butt? :shocked:

[jaleely]

And i am awful with scientific names. It has taken me long enough just to learn my snakes *lol*
We managed to grow that large one for years, but it lived at my mother in laws house while my husband was in college. Since then, we have tried to have two others at our house, and the temps and humdity have been horrible to try to control for the poor things. Our current one is doing pretty well (as you can see...in fact right after this he had a molt again, and he's even more blue with less tiger stripes...turning more solid orange). We're trying very hard to keep all his conditions perfect. The only other one we've ever had trouble keeping in our environment was a goliath bird eater (don't know the scientific name for that one either!)
As for GBBs, they need moisture as babies, but then suddenly hit adulthood and cannot tolerate moisture.
The bird eater needed more moisture and our housing for it was wrong.
Anyway, they are a challenge but very pretty. The first one we had was even more docile, whereas the second one we tried to have i didn't consider trying to handle at all. This little guy is super sweet as far as GBBs go!

[jaleely]

Alessia, spinnerets! Used to guide the webs they spin. They are soft, and not spikey. They wiggle them sometimes...and when they have just caught a meal, a lot of different species get excited and start spinning webs to catch more food...so you'll see them holding a cricket or worm in their fangs...and then moving around touching their butts...and wiggling their spinnerets.... to the ground all over. It's pretty cute actually.

[alessia55]

So..... do tarantulas bite? sting? are they venomous?

[jaleely]

All spiders (i think, my hubby is the tarantula expert, i'm just the tarantula harrasser) have fangs...even daddy long legs! And they inject venom, which can be a skin irritant...and clearly with some of the bigger ones...be just a big huge hole in your flesh like a vampire bite!
However, many would rather run than bite. And some of the "new world" tarantulas, do something called "kicking hairs" rather than biting. As a defense, they will rapidly rub their back leg against their abdomen and fling tiny little hairs that you can't see, at you..which are REALLY itchy.
Green bottle blue is a new world, so it will bite you and or kick hairs *lol*
New world means it *can* kick hairs, not that it will. It may bite! or it may be just a sweet little fuzzy stuffed animal thing and let you move it all around. I've had a brazilian black that was supposed to be fuzzy and sweet...and it was down right agressive and almost vicious..even chasing down the tongs. However, i have one now who is just as sweet and tolerant as can be.

I've luckily never been bitten by any tarantula, though i have had the hairs cloud from kicking and be an irritant to my skin. I just leave those guys alone now *lol*

You can usually tell pretty quickly if a tarantula will be defensive or agressive, or docile. If it raises it's front legs....that thing will bite you! If it whips around and kicks it's back leg..kicking hairs! If it RUNS at you...it's hungry and vicious!
if it sits there, barely moves when poked...then it's almost always safe to pick up *lol*
Tarantula body language is pretty self-evident.

BTW someone more technical feel free to post info or vids or something to clarify if i wasn't wishy washy on anything. A lot of my knowledge is just on the ones i've owned, and not very technical.

[jaleely]

in that "photo of old photos" in a frame the top left is an indian violet...bottom left is green bottle blue...bottom right is a honduran curly hair, male, so he didn't live very long but he was SUPER sweet and really docile, and the upper right is a mexican red knee...who we still have and who is about 9 years old now. And just the most vicious angry little brat ever!
And they are supposed to be nice! She is NOT *lol*

I should post some updated pics of my other critters