finally measured my red knee

[treeweta]

a couple of people wanted to see my red knee with a ruler as proof of its size. Heres its skin from 2007, she is 20 years and a genuine 7 1/4 inches! carapace is 31.5mm (sorry to change units), the carapace grows about 0.5mm per moult (well for the last 10 or so moults) so im hoping that she will get a bit older and a bit bigger!!


http://www.arachnoboards.com/ab/gallery/showimage.php?i=6929

[Talkenlate04]

Dang that is a big girl! :worship:

[SuperRad]

What were you feedin' her? Miracle Gro? :confused:

[treeweta]

What were you feedin' her? Miracle Gro? :confused:

ha,ha, i had her from a 2nd moult sling, she wasnt especially powerfed. Its a combination of genetics, she was a typical size when she was about 8 years old, 5.5 inches or so but has grown a bit with each annual moult, very slowly but very surely!!

[Widowman10]

woooooow!!:eek: very nice, very nice!:clap:

[tin man]

so her molt is 7 1/2 inches than how big she now after her molt... that is one big spider

[penny'smom]

Holy Roni Moni!! That's what my 4yo says when impressed with something. :D

[scottyk]

I sense another steroid scandal in the making :D

That's one big beautiful T you've got there!

[treeweta]

so her molt is 7 1/2 inches than how big she now after her molt... that is one big spider

shes actually 7 1/4 almost dead on. After the moult i'd say she will be 7 1/3 with a 32mm carapace. Im not sure how much longer she will live but if she gets to 25 with say another 3 moults she could get to 7.5-7.75. I wonder what the max size is for a smithi? im sure with time a genetically large specimen could get to 8 inches with a carapace of 33-34mm although that will take decades, a pamphobeteus can get that big in 3 years.

actually if you look at my gallery photos you'll see a lot of her skins in series.

[Venom]

Yikes!! I didn't know they could GET that big! Good job!

[SuperRad]

ha,ha, i had her from a 2nd moult sling, she wasnt especially powerfed. Its a combination of genetics, she was a typical size when she was about 8 years old, 5.5 inches or so but has grown a bit with each annual moult, very slowly but very surely!!

Maybe you should take that titan and mate her with larger males and try to breed super smithi's. In a few generations you'd get some huge breeding stock. I'd love to see one that's 9 inches.

*giggle* {D sorry. Jr. High humor...

[KenTheBugGuy]

That is a very nice sized T you got there :)

[treeweta]

Maybe you should take that titan and mate her with larger males and try to breed super smithi's. In a few generations you'd get some huge breeding stock. I'd love to see one that's 9 inches.

*giggle* {D sorry. Jr. High humor...

that would be nice, alas shes in the UK and i live in teh USA so any breeding would be very difficult but it would be good to get some big smithi genes into some s/lings. I remember the parent of this spider, she was also huge and very old.

[J.huff23]

Holy cow! thats awsome! congrats!