- Joined
- May 11, 2003
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- 117
Continued from Part 1.
On a recent trip to Costa Rica, I took a night walk in the Arenal Volcano National Park. This cloud forest park is in north central Costa Rica and is at a fairly high elevation of approximately 5300 feet above sea level. These high altitude parks are know as cloud forests (as opposed to rain forests) as it is not uncommon to look down from a mountain trail at these elevations and see wispy clouds racing by. We were told that many “red legged” tarantulas lived in the forest at these high elevations and I was anxious to see what species they were and to observe them in their natural habitat. By the way, Costa Rican’s seemed to refer to all tarantula species as the “pica caballo” or horse biter and not just the A. Seemani.
Also of interest, almost everyone I spoke with knew of the pica caballo, but almost no one had ever actually seen one. Quite ironic that one of the most commonly collected tarantulas in the hobby is so uncommonly seen in their country of origin. I’d guess the typical Indian or Sri Lankan has never seen a Poke either for that matter.
So, we signed up for a night walk tour through the forest with Bobby Maxson, a naturalist and full time forest guide living in Arenal. Bobby said he had seen many “red leg” tarantulas in the area and though we would have a good chance of seeing one. Well, he was right. The “red legs” turned out to be Megaphobema mesomelas and we saw four of them during the course of a 2 hour walk. They seemed to be very opportunistic in the selection of their living quarters. We observed them living in earth burrows in the sides of earth embankments as well as within hollow tree stumps and deep crevasses formed from the roots of the giant forest trees.
Here’s a pic of a M. mesomelas hanging out in front of her earth burrow.
On a recent trip to Costa Rica, I took a night walk in the Arenal Volcano National Park. This cloud forest park is in north central Costa Rica and is at a fairly high elevation of approximately 5300 feet above sea level. These high altitude parks are know as cloud forests (as opposed to rain forests) as it is not uncommon to look down from a mountain trail at these elevations and see wispy clouds racing by. We were told that many “red legged” tarantulas lived in the forest at these high elevations and I was anxious to see what species they were and to observe them in their natural habitat. By the way, Costa Rican’s seemed to refer to all tarantula species as the “pica caballo” or horse biter and not just the A. Seemani.
Also of interest, almost everyone I spoke with knew of the pica caballo, but almost no one had ever actually seen one. Quite ironic that one of the most commonly collected tarantulas in the hobby is so uncommonly seen in their country of origin. I’d guess the typical Indian or Sri Lankan has never seen a Poke either for that matter.
So, we signed up for a night walk tour through the forest with Bobby Maxson, a naturalist and full time forest guide living in Arenal. Bobby said he had seen many “red leg” tarantulas in the area and though we would have a good chance of seeing one. Well, he was right. The “red legs” turned out to be Megaphobema mesomelas and we saw four of them during the course of a 2 hour walk. They seemed to be very opportunistic in the selection of their living quarters. We observed them living in earth burrows in the sides of earth embankments as well as within hollow tree stumps and deep crevasses formed from the roots of the giant forest trees.
Here’s a pic of a M. mesomelas hanging out in front of her earth burrow.
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