Rescued a hissing T

JohnxII

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This is an unlabelled T in the pet store. Size is about 5-5.5". I think it's an adult female Boehmei, am I right? Bicoloratums can't get this big right... Yeah I know you shouldn't buy poorly kept T's in pet shops, but I just had to in this case...

Anyway, she was found wall-standing in a small kritter keeper, with the substrate FULL of mites and cricket nymphs. When I say full, I'm not kidding either - imagine bee hive density! :eek: I doubt I will ever see so much mites in my life, ever.

She is now the biggest T in my keeping. An boy did I had a hard time transferring her to her current better home! She's a clumpsy climber, and she makes this sound - something between a snake's hiss and a cricket's chrip - when she's in panic mode. Is that a regular feature for adult Brachypelma's? :?

She seems fine now, having had 2 gravid house crickets and 2 male fighting crickets. And last time I checked, there seems to be no mites on her.
 

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Cooper

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I know that Ts with special hairs can hiss(t. blondi for example), but I have never heard of a brachypelma doing it. :?
 

JohnxII

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I will try to record the sound and post here - she's quite bold anyway and didn't kick a lot. The sound is a little high pitched... and I don't think it's made by rubbing hairs because she can hiss/chirp when she's stationary.
 

Scorpiove

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Are you sure it wasn't just small cricket nymphs then even smaller cricket nymphs :p. I just cleaned my rose hair tank which I noticed cricket nymphs everywhere. No mites though. Just small nymphs then smaller ones and even smaller ones. They start out real real small.
 

Cooper

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Good idea, but there is a hole in your theory. Crickets don't get their wings till their final molt, and therefore are unable to produce sound until fullgrown.
 

morda

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Never heard about hissing Brachypelma. Are You sure You heard that? Weird...
 

danread

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I had a male smithi that could make a hissing noise when he was disturbed. I couldn't figure out how he was doing it, and i've never heard anyone else reporting such a behaviour, but it was definitely coming from the tarantula.
 

Scorpiove

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Cooper said:
Good idea, but there is a hole in your theory. Crickets don't get their wings till their final molt, and therefore are unable to produce sound until fullgrown.
Oh I wasn't reffering to the hissing, I was reffering to the comment made about the mites. Chances are that if there were cricket nymphs in there then what was thought were mites were even smaller cricket nymphs. Would explain why the tarantula didn't have mights after everything was changed. I have no doubt that the hissing sound is coming from the tarantula though. I've heard of Brachypelma and Grammostola species hissing. I remember someone on this board that had a Rose Hair that could hiss.
 

pitbulllady

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That was a lucky find, since that DOES look like a B.boehmei. It took me several months to find one! I've never heard any of my Brachypelma species hiss, but my E. campestratus sure does! She makes a quite loud noise similar to a Madagascan Hissing Roach when she is p***** off, which is MOST of the time. Joe over at Carolina Specialty Pets told me that T's make that noise by rubbing their chelecrae together, and that they can do this as a threat/warning, or that many males will do this to impress a female.

pitbulllady
 

Tescos

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Not sure how up to date this is?

Stridulating Organ - Plumose setae are present, insome cases, on the trochanter of leg 1 and always on the base of the inner face of the femur.Note these at times, can be very fine and it may be necessary to higher magnification to discern them.

This is taken fron the Brachypelma Generic Key in the book "Tarantulas of the U.S.A. and Mexico" by Andrew M Smith.

So maybe you did hear your Brachy hiss?
 

Arachnoking

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My Female B.smithi can make a hissing noise when disturbed.

Here she is.
 

Socrates

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Wow

Johnson,
That is one beautiful B. Boehmi you got there! WOW! :) You are so lucky, I'm almost a bit envious.
Now that she is in her new and cleaned up enclosure, do you still hear her making sounds/noises? I bet it sound weird, doesn't it?

---
Wendy
---
 

JohnxII

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Thanks for your input guys, especially pitbulllady. I tried to film it with my d-cam, but the crappy microphone won't pick up the hiss properly. And the background noise is too much with quicktime... since this is actually not uncommon, I won't employ a more sophisticated recording session...

As for the mite thing, she must've have been really lucky then. I know the difference between mites and cricket nymphs... the mites weren't the nasty red kind, but the white scanvenging kind at 0.25-5mm.

Wendy, yep she still hisses when being touched! But remains calm when I do maintenance etc. Hey BTW Ron_K replied and told me the tape was sent back to blckwidow75. Maybe it's time you ask?
 

JohnxII

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Tescos said:
Not sure how up to date this is?

Stridulating Organ - Plumose setae are present, insome cases, on the trochanter of leg 1 and always on the base of the inner face of the femur.Note these at times, can be very fine and it may be necessary to higher magnification to discern them.

This is taken fron the Brachypelma Generic Key in the book "Tarantulas of the U.S.A. and Mexico" by Andrew M Smith.

So maybe you did hear your Brachy hiss?
Ops. Almost missed that out. Thank you Tescos, that was v.informative.
 

blckwidow75

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Hmmm...that's odd. Ron_K has not replied to my PM's and has not sent the tape back to me. Funny he should tell you that he did. :?
Ron, if you're reading this just mail the tape back. You've had 2 months now - that is surely enough time to record it, right?
 

NYbirdEater

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JohnxII said:
Thanks for your input guys, especially pitbulllady. I tried to film it with my d-cam, but the crappy microphone won't pick up the hiss properly. And the background noise is too much with quicktime...
FYI...

Quicktime doesn't create bakground noise, it's your mic or soundcard and definitiely your digital cam. With a cheap mic or soundcard there is a small signal to noise ratio so If you try and bump up the decibels you hear the noise. Most consumer audio stuff gives you this hiss effect, especially because cheap mics won't even pick up all frequencies. If you have the money, spend 20 bucks to rent out low to mid end music studio for an hour, then you can bring your T into the sound proof booth and record it on a $2000 microphone in all its glory! :D You'll pick up every little frequency between 20hz-20khz sometimes more, and then you can use limiters compressors and EQ to fine tune the sound. Any studio will have an engineer to work the equipment if you don't know how.
 

JohnxII

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NYbirdEater said:
FYI...

Quicktime doesn't create bakground noise, it's your mic or soundcard and definitiely your digital cam. With a cheap mic or soundcard there is a small signal to noise ratio so If you try and bump up the decibels you hear the noise. Most consumer audio stuff gives you this hiss effect, especially because cheap mics won't even pick up all frequencies. If you have the money, spend 20 bucks to rent out low to mid end music studio for an hour, then you can bring your T into the sound proof booth and record it on a $2000 microphone in all its glory! :D You'll pick up every little frequency between 20hz-20khz sometimes more, and then you can use limiters compressors and EQ to fine tune the sound. Any studio will have an engineer to work the equipment if you don't know how.
Hey thanks NYbirdEater... AKA *the* computer tech expert. I remember you answering my question regarding RGB/CYMK printing. Last night I found a simple signal amplifier for hand held microphones. Might try that with a web cam later.
 

NYbirdEater

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JohnxII said:
Hey thanks NYbirdEater... AKA *the* computer tech expert. I remember you answering my question regarding RGB/CYMK printing. Last night I found a simple signal amplifier for hand held microphones. Might try that with a web cam later.
That may sound slightly better as far as loudness, but most handheld mics are crap as it is unless of course they are the ones used for performances and those still won't give you full freq range. To record high quality sound I use a variety of gear including a condesor mic with a wind screen, audio interface which allows recording of analog and digital sound into computer and has pretty good mic pre-amps, a mixing board, and a bunch of plugins for effects. All-in-all a couple of thousand worth of stuff, which is why I suggested you just go to a studio. I use it for music and sound effects, although I have no sound proof booth, so I still have noise issues myself.

the main thing is that you record the sound at atleast 44.1k at 16 bit, mono will work, stereo is better if you have an omni directional mic or 2 mics. Web cam mics are even worse than handhelds, better off saving your money on buying that amp, and just lookup a local studio. They may charge you even less if you explain what it is you are recording.
 
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MilkmanWes

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The background noise could be as simple as air movement - ceiling fans, AC, etc. A bathroom is a good place to take it. Lots of famous recordings made in bathrooms. I use mine for that if I need a vocal booth around here.

Also inside a kritter keeper or other solid walled enclosure your going to get a bit of a 'seashell effect' where air movement and other indescernable noises create standing waves between the walls that the mic will hear from it's perspective. Put it in a shallower enclosure to reduce this problem.

Also you can get a cheap lavalier mic at radio shack that can connect to the mic jack on your camcorder. These are the types of mics that you see pinned to peoples collars or ties on news broadcasts. Just clip that to the edge of the enclosure so you dont get any contact noise with it and position it in such a way that it is aimed at the T but not where you will breath on it. Try it with and without the foam windscreen that will come with it. These mics are great, we use them to record double bass and even brass on a swing band which does a lot better than some of the high end mics sometimes.

The mechanical acton of the digicam dragging the tape accross the tape heads will cause lots of noise. Depending on the model the built in mic may or may not be shielded against this. Using even a cheap mic that is detached from the cam corder body can really help

As for using it connected directy to your computer, your computer fan can make a lot of noise that the mic picks up on. try getting the maximum distance with the cord and if you can, go around a corner.

Another strategy with a mic like that is attaching it to the cage and laying a towl over as much of it as you can and still be able to stimulate the T into stridulating. This will act as an extra damper for some background sounds. Setting it on a bed or other soft surface like a folded towl or piece of carpet will also help defeat sound being reflected back up at the mic from a hard surface like a table and being picked up by the mic.

Of course bad quality can be introduced at any point in the mechanics of the recording equipment - bad wires, bad connections, cheap soundcards, etc. But these are different kinds of problems and can even make the background noise problem seem worse.

You have to experiment with distance from what you are recording as well as the angle you are approaching it from (ie above, off center left, 45 degree, etc). Different positions mean the recording sutface is hit by a different part of the sound wave. There is always a degree of experimentation that goes on to get the right sound. For example - positioning a mic over the top f shaped hole on a violin will sound completley different than putting it over an identical hole on the lower half of the instrument. Same thing will apply to parts of the T making the noise.

Hope this helps out. Getting good sound isnt always about good gear, but about recording it under differing conditions and from different positions until you get something that sounds right.


NYbirdEater said:
FYI...

Quicktime doesn't create bakground noise, it's your mic or soundcard and definitiely your digital cam. With a cheap mic or soundcard there is a small signal to noise ratio so If you try and bump up the decibels you hear the noise. Most consumer audio stuff gives you this hiss effect, especially because cheap mics won't even pick up all frequencies. If you have the money, spend 20 bucks to rent out low to mid end music studio for an hour, then you can bring your T into the sound proof booth and record it on a $2000 microphone in all its glory! :D You'll pick up every little frequency between 20hz-20khz sometimes more, and then you can use limiters compressors and EQ to fine tune the sound. Any studio will have an engineer to work the equipment if you don't know how.
 
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