Staffordshire Exotics is the name of the club and they held a show at the White Star pub in Stoke. I'm sure they had some snakes there last time, sadly I couldn't make it but I'll keep my eyes peeled for the next meet.
I do the same.They moult their outer exoskeleton to grow, and this includes their sex organs.
Deletes Stoke from all satnav, rips out midland pages from atlas, OMFG and venomous 😯 😯 😯 😯 I only shift spidies out of the window if Mrs G is not in
I avoid Stoke for other reasons pmsl. Here's the actual moult of my [i]Brachypelma boehmei[/i] and once it had come off I could examine it and found out she was a girl. It's preferable to have them turn out as girls even if you don't breed them as girls live much longer than the boys and so it's money well spent when you buy them as an "un-sexed" juvenile
[IMG] 
[/IMG]
The [i]C.salei[/i] is a wondering spider but not in the same category as the [i]Phoneutria[/i] Brazilian wondering spider at all. Im not sure about DWA in the UK but it probably is on the list though as it is from a similar family. Some scorpions in Europe, like the one below, are also on the list because their cousins are dangerous, but [i]Sicarius[/i] isn't and it is very dangerous.
[i]Buthus ibericus[/i]
[img] 
[/img]
Saying that this scorp has just matured and is on the DWA list and probably should be.
[img] 
[/img]
Great pics and I can, kinda, see the appeal; never appreciated that handling them was so dangerous to [i]them[/i]!
But I'll stick with cats that I can cuddle up with on the sofa with no risk of sudden death to either party...
I look at these pics and there is poo at the my pants\me interface.
I can see the appeal as a low maintenance but interesting pet. I'm more scared of being on a ladder but it's still not for me.
Just down the road a new 'shop' has opened selling reptiles and a few scorpions & spiders. I use the word shop but really it's a hobby. The bloke has an example of every deadly snake in there. Amazing it's allowed tbh, rattlesnakes, vipers, cobras, all angry up at the glass, and as a headliner, in the corner. A cayman.
He's not allowed to sell that side of the shop but still... 😯
He will have had to have gone to great lengths to be able sell DWA stuff. The council will have been involved, he will have them in what's called a "hot room" and prove they cannot escape form that room if they get out of their enclosures. It's a very strictly controlled business.
Cool spiders! Very impressive. That bloke on the video sounds pretty breathless and nervous. I suppose thats better than not being scared of them!
He's not allowed to sell that side of things. He made a big point about being one of very few people with the whole spectrum of lethal snakes in one place.
they're behind glass but I think proving is a moot point, I'm not sure the local ne'er do wells fancy getting involved.
Lots of extra helpers when I went in,people hanging around, I assume it attracts hangers on who are into the the fact that it's extreme.
The animals are just doing their own thing.
I've got a Euthlus sp red, must say I'm liking the look of the scorpions!
With the spiders, do they ever get accustomed to a routine? Are they intelligent enough to know that feeding/cleaning always happens at a certain time or in a certain way?
I love these threads, genuinely fascinating! I can definitely see the appeal but I'm not inclined to own any.
pictonroad - where's the 'shop' I'd love to go have a look?
dandax1990 - Member
On another note, I'm like a girl when it comes to spiders, it's the way they move.But because T's are bigger I'm not so bad with them.
This is because our minds can't compute all eight legs at once when they're moving quickly, they therefore look 'creepy' [crawly].
A tarantula tends to move more slowly as a result of their size so they're often easier to come to terms with.
No they don't get accustomed to anything as I'd hazard a guess they're brains aren't big enough. They do possess remarkable senses though and even a soft breath or tremor can alert them so best to never breathe over them as those that are skittish can then try bite you.
Euthlus sp red's are lovely spiders. The scorpions in the photos I posted are DWA in the UK but there are lots of fascinating scorps you can get. Some of the beginner species are also quite easy to breed too which makes them even more interesting to watch.
I would say my spiders do what they do. I wonder if they learn to tolerate me and maybe recognise me. They rely on hormones and we all give off our own. I do have one which I wonder if she knows she is going to get fed but that is probably me projecting on her. Spiders are very susceptible to stress so you can tell if they are comfortable and so more relaxed. If you start looking at their brain and nervous system I have no idea what they "think" or "feel". They are very odd to us. I would love to know though.
When I was a kid in the East African bush we used to hunt scorpions and fill the teacher's desk drawer.
Always good for a diversion with a fresh young teacher straight out from the UK. 🙂
I would disagree slightly with Hadge, as I think they do become accustomed to their home, at least webbing spiders do. Whenever I move a spider to a new home I try and include as much of the webbing as possible as it will be something with their own marking on it. I do this to try and reduce any stress they might experience and to speed up the settling in period.
Also communities seen to work as a group rather than the normal cannibalistic individuals. I could be wrong though.
I would like to know more about decoy spiders.
I kinda like them as i'm not bothered bout the large house spiders we get in this country, there's one in my bedroom that lives behind the curtain and when i open them up in the morning i see it running out of the corner to greet me with it's front legs up, waving a cheery good morning - or perhaps it's pissed off at me and shaking it's fist as i destroy it's web with my daily routine, quite happy to pick them up and either place them outside or somewhere safe but i dunno bout' those monsters up there ^ - i'd like to think i'd be cool with them but i may run away like a big jessie.
When i was staying out in Zimbabwe (vic falls/Harare/Matopos) there was a particular type of very large flat bodied spider that liked to hide behind pictures and on the walls of the house etc, when you walked around at night to go the bathroom or walk about outside they would jump out and try and land on you, those ****ers freaked me out as the folk i living with used to say they do that as they like to drink the blood of animals that they land on, when they've had enough they fall off with a full stomach.
I dunno if that was true or if they were just on a wind up but there was a lot of things out there that would quite happily kill you or take a bite out of you, i was looking down a large hole one day and was knocked clean off my feet by a warthog, and i had to leg it up onto rocks from a mamba down in the matopo national park - beautiful place but everything tried to kill me.
blimey that's pant-wettingly big.
it must feel good to know that they are so fragile and that if things got out of hand you could just drop-kick it or throw a book at it and it would just explode its limby hairy gooey splatterings all over your spider cave/ arachno-den?
somafunk, did thy look like this
[img] 
[/img]
They are known as flatters and come from they Selenopidae family and are so flat can hide behind bark or pictures.
Arghhhh........(As i run for the door avoiding the walls).
Yeah..that's it (i opened your link) and searched for other info, apparently it's harmless to people....they still scared the crap out me with their flat bodies and jumping tendencies though - spiders should not have perfectly flat bodies - they're quite freaky enough without messing with our minds....however the giant millipedes that i used to stand on with bare feet as they scuttled about the floor at night also freaked me out, they also made a squishy mess between my toes.
[img] 
[/img]
[img] 
[/img]
they are oddly flat and very fast. Still qite special though.
Those millipedes are cool too but do have a defensive wee in your hand if you scare them.
😯
[img] 
[/img]
I dunno bout them doing a defensive wee in your hand as i never picked them up, i did pick bits of them out from between my toes though and they still squirm and wriggle after you've stood on them (accidentally i may add as everyone either had bare stone or tiled/wooden floors in zim.
More spider pics please, what's their habitat like?.
i had a mate who had a big spider in a tank in the living room, it used to rear up at me if i sat in the chair next to it and i always presumed it was just what it did...
apparently not, it was only when [i]I[/i] sat there, not anyone else.
im a bit squeamish about spiders but i do think they are beautiful and will spend ages looking at them if im not in an enclosed space with them.
[u]somafunk[/u] i spent some time in zim as a child, are those big millipedes called changalolos? am i remembering that right?
Yeah - that's right 🙂 , remember having to iron all your clothes if they were hung out on a washing line because of the Jigga flea?, they liked to live or crawl into damp seams on clothing and if the seam rubbed on your body then it made it easy for the flea to burrow in to your skin and eat - i've a small hole in my thigh where my outback type shorts rubbed and a jigga flea burrowed into my leg, the person i was staying with (he ran safaris) dug it out with a scalpel as i sat there drunk on bush hooch.
Despite all that i'd go back t'morn.
Is it just me... I love the spiders but the moults freak me out.
🙂 its the only time ive used an iron
Top thread, thanks for the pics. I'm torn between being a bit freaked out and actually wanting one.
Mental note to self..."if I do open this kind of thread, DONT CARRY ON READING IT, just before going to bed...."
I can see the attraction but I think I'll stick with me tropical fish...
