Trap Door Spider

[jonie]

Hi all,

just been checking these out because of an earlier thread, and there awesome, anyone keep em? very interested in trying them, fromwhat i have read they just stay in there hole and take prey, eat the god stuff, then throw the other stuff out? is this true? they sound great, does anyone know if they do well in captivity at all? not heard of many people on here keeping them so i guess they're uncommon,

John

[Moltar]

99.5% of the time they're in hiding. Unlike obligate burrowing t's who occasionally come out, these guys NEVER come out. I've had one for over a year and not seen it out of the burrow at all. It's pretty cool when they eat though. Get ready for the most exciting 1/4 second of the month!

Still, a nice supplement to a tarantula collection. There are many posts about these guys over in the true spiders forum (where this post will probably be moved to)

[Kid Dragon]

Trap door spiders are true spiders, so expect this thread to be moved out of the tarantula section.

Trap door spiders are aggessive and some have a venom that is medically significant. They are fast, and are not for everyone.

Tarantulas and jumping spiders make much better captives in my opinion.

[Zoltan]

Actually, they aren't true spiders (Araneomorphae), but Mygalomorphae just like tarantulas (my language calls them "spiders with 4 booklungs" or "4 lunged spiders" - not sure which is more appropriate in English), but this topic still fits into "True Spiders and Other Arachnids" forum better.

[dannax]

I think Rob got a bright red one a little while back. Watching the video was soo much fun! It reminded me of a little red tank with legs! {D

[v4climber]

http://youtube.com/watch?v=ySXCdcnKBgg

Look at the beginning of the video, that's what you'll see most of the time... The last few seconds is what you'll see every once in a while. That's about it.

[Moltar]

Nice video. It's absolutely amazing how fast these guys are.

Kid Dragon, you're right that they're quite aggro and relatively hot. I had a real adventure rehousing my "African Red" (probably 1 of 3 different spp) but once in the burrows it just hides from any disturbance. Since most species can't climb glass the escape and/or bite risk is virtually nil as long as you use tongs religiously.

But in contrast to t's, when they're out of their element these guys are unbelievably fierce.

[Kid Dragon]

Actually, they aren't true spiders (Araneomorphae), but Mygalomorphae just like tarantulas (my language calls them "spiders with 4 booklungs" or "4 lunged spiders" - not sure which is more appropriate in English), but this topic still fits into "True Spiders and Other Arachnids" forum better.

Thank you, you are correct. I should have said they aren't tarantulas. I tend to think of every spider that isn't in the Family Theraphosidae as a true spider, and there are many that are not...point well taken.

I think you are correct that the intent of arachnoboards was to put the non-Theraphosidae spiders on the thread with 'True Spiders and Other Arachnids'.

As usually, your post was excellent! :)

[ErgoProxy]

Nice video. It's absolutely amazing how fast these guys are.

Kid Dragon, you're right that they're quite aggro and relatively hot. I had a real adventure rehousing my "African Red" (probably 1 of 3 different spp) but once in the burrows it just hides from any disturbance. Since most species can't climb glass the escape and/or bite risk is virtually nil as long as you use tongs religiously.

But in contrast to t's, when they're out of their element these guys are unbelievably fierce.

I'll agree with Ethan on this one. The "African Reds" I had in the past were the "fiestiest" spiders I had ever kept, at first...(when I first got them at a show and they were housed in small plastic containers with nothing to dig in).

Once I gave each a deep container full of substrate and they dug a burrow you hardly would see them! Only when eating or I had one at a public presentation/demo and I would open the TD to show the spider sitting at the bottom of the burrow (most people couldn't even see the TD when it was closed). That is, if the spider wasn't actively holding the door shut!

Really liked keeping them though....