porteri/rosea Life stage question (plus introduction and pics)

Hello everybody! Sorry if this has been posted in the wrong place, I spend oodles of time just staring at the various subsections and unsure which place fitted it best.

Anyways, this is Quelaan, my ball of adorable fur G.porteri


I purchased Quelaan a few months ago, and so far it has been eating pretty voraciously, eating two large crickets in a week. I've started to feed it less now.

Can anybody tell me what lifestage it is at? Spiderling, subadult, adult, mature, I'm quite confused by all these terms.


Haha, at first I was going to do a size comparison photo with my hand, but it decided to climb out onto its lid and let me get an accurate ruler measurement!


Quelaan has begun construction of her lair


spider and pig, spider and pig, do whatever spiders and pigs can do...


Thanks in advance!

I would say adult although there are definitely people on the forums that have much more experience then I do. She's beautiful and that pig pic is ADORABLE!!! I put an eyore figurine about that same size in my wolf spider enclosure. lol.

welcome to the boards.

theres not realy a "stage of life" noticeable by pics. they grow insanely slow in most cases unless fed like every day as a baby. with no information from the breeder or the liniage she could be as young as 5 or 6 or even full grown at 10 or so its hard telling. i have a coworker with 7 porteri and all are 15 yrs and each dif sized

Pertaining to your confusion over the various jargon, there's no technical answer. Since T's vary hugely in size there's no real answer, but I go with under 30% max size being a sling, over 60% being an adult size, and everything in between being juvenile/subadult.

Hello and welcome, fellow Dark Souls player. Your porteri looks to be more or less a fully-grown adult. Practically impossible to give an age estimate though. Enjoy your furry little sister of chaos.

sharko said:

Quelaan has begun construction of her lair
View attachment 129259

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Heh, cute!

ratluvr76 said:

I would say adult although there are definitely people on the forums that have much more experience then I do. She's beautiful and that pig pic is ADORABLE!!! I put an eyore figurine about that same size in my wolf spider enclosure. lol.

welcome to the boards.

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Mucho thanks! haha Do you have a picture of that? Wolf spider and a eeyore.

pyro fiend said:

theres not realy a "stage of life" noticeable by pics. they grow insanely slow in most cases unless fed like every day as a baby. with no information from the breeder or the liniage she could be as young as 5 or 6 or even full grown at 10 or so its hard telling. i have a coworker with 7 porteri and all are 15 yrs and each dif sized

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I see, thanks. So it's at a size to be accurately sexed then?

lacrosse5001 said:

Pertaining to your confusion over the various jargon, there's no technical answer. Since T's vary hugely in size there's no real answer, but I go with under 30% max size being a sling, over 60% being an adult size, and everything in between being juvenile/subadult.

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So right now it's either a immature male, or a immature/adult female?

netr said:

Hello and welcome, fellow Dark Souls player. Your porteri looks to be more or less a fully-grown adult. Practically impossible to give an age estimate though. Enjoy your furry little sister of chaos.Heh, cute!

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haha thanks thanks! Praise the sun. Hopefully it really is a 'sister' of chaos and not a 'brother' of chaos haha.

sharko said:

Mucho thanks! haha Do you have a picture of that? Wolf spider and a eeyore.



I see, thanks. So it's at a size to be accurately sexed then?



So right now it's either a immature male, or a immature/adult female?



haha thanks thanks! Praise the sun. Hopefully it really is a 'sister' of chaos and not a 'brother' of chaos haha.

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im sure she [hopefully] can. not much to tell me her ize she looks 3" you can try vent sexing till she molts which can be about 75% right with the right person...once she molts you can get a 100% guarantee on her sex

Welcome to the forrum, i use to have a rosie and they grow so..so... slowely so it would be hard to give you a definitive age, but with yours being around 3½inches and the avg size arnd 6, i would say juvi/sub-adult, you did say rosia right...lol... yeah think were talking abt different species of rosia here but there still slow growers, so your doing the right thing with just a few crickets a week, they can go on fasts for months, even over a year when begginers make the mistake of feeding as much as they can eat and then wonder why they've stopped feeding with slow growing ts, the abdomen is huge on that mother in relation to the carapace... shouldn't be a problem though if theres no sharp edges in the enclosure... nice T and pics bud

sharko said:

haha thanks thanks! Praise the sun. Hopefully it really is a 'sister' of chaos and not a 'brother' of chaos haha.

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One nice thing about this genus being slow growers is that even if Quelaan turns out to be a brother of chaos, he probably won't have an ultimate moult for a good while and beyond that may last ages anyway. If it proves male, see if you can find him some females in your area. In my experience, most adult and subadult Grammostola on the market are still wild-caught, presumably because of the length of time it takes them to mature.

sudden overnight web

Quelaan has done something really amazing.

In one single night, it has spun a huge cocoon of web and enclosed herself in it. I frantically tried searching for information on it, but could find nothing...

Is she about to molt?



she has attached a bit of it to the lid on top...What should I do? Attempt to open it and risk breaking her web? Or just leave her be? (How do I feed her/water if its actually just her burrow?)



Right now, as I type this, she has just begun laying down even MORE web. I see her little butt and spinnerets going crazy in there...

Should I be worried?

sharko said:

Quelaan has done something really amazing.

In one single night, it has spun a huge cocoon of web and enclosed herself in it. I frantically tried searching for information on it, but could find nothing...

Is she about to molt?

View attachment 129315

she has attached a bit of it to the lid on top...What should I do? Attempt to open it and risk breaking her web? Or just leave her be? (How do I feed her/water if its actually just her burrow?)

View attachment 129316

Right now, as I type this, she has just begun laying down even MORE web. I see her little butt and spinnerets going crazy in there...

Should I be worried?

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not common as id liek but its possible she doesnt like the light if not providing a hide. she may even be about to molt.. its just depends. mine doesnt do anything but the mat to find her way around. but shes made an entire sheet in 7hrs i was at work lol. from what i have seen it doesnt look like you have a secure hide, but we cant tell. mine has 3 hides. everyone told me she wouldnt use but one.. but she uses ALL of them. i commonly have to look for her literally. i know she cant get out but its like playing musical rosea with her XD

but based off of her color. id say its very possible shes about to molt..her exo look spretty dark. if not then its just her redecorating

sharko said:

Quelaan has done something really amazing.

In one single night, it has spun a huge cocoon of web and enclosed herself in it. I frantically tried searching for information on it, but could find nothing...

Is she about to molt?

View attachment 129315

she has attached a bit of it to the lid on top...What should I do? Attempt to open it and risk breaking her web? Or just leave her be? (How do I feed her/water if its actually just her burrow?)

View attachment 129316

Right now, as I type this, she has just begun laying down even MORE web. I see her little butt and spinnerets going crazy in there...

Should I be worried?

Click to expand...

It looks like she's going to drop a sac. Congratulations!

actually.. now that hobo said it.. thats verry possible.. i didnt even consider she may have been with a male period XD

wow, congrats Sharko, you're about to be a spidey grandpa!

what!? For real?! I rescued Quelaan from a really bad environment, where she was kept in a A/C'd room with bright lights, and she seemed to have been living in there for a while...Do tarantulas hold in their eggs until a more suitable environment arrives?

Seriously?! Eggs!? Not a molt? WOW! Since then she has made the ball even more opaque and thick. It's almost like a cocoon.

sharko said:

what!? For real?! I rescued Quelaan from a really bad environment, where she was kept in a A/C'd room with bright lights, and she seemed to have been living in there for a while.

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It may not have been as bad as you think. The species is not at all light sensitive and will regularly sit in the open, even in direct sunlight, without issue. As for the A/C, all that's going to do is slow its metabolism, which will in turn reduce its food intake and probably cause a few more fasts. Also because of the reduced metabolic rate, it will also cause the t's lifespan to actually increase.

cold blood said:

It may not have been as bad as you think. The species is not at all light sensitive and will regularly sit in the open, even in direct sunlight, without issue. As for the A/C, all that's going to do is slow its metabolism, which will in turn reduce its food intake and probably cause a few more fasts. Also because of the reduced metabolic rate, it will also cause the t's lifespan to actually increase.

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That is true but if you lowered the temo to say 65 deg would she actually retain her sack for that long?? I know 18months isnt unheard of but if temps had been kept that low for example would 24 even be possible? And would it resuce the amount of viable eggs

Cooling periods are employed by breeders all the time to get certain species to breed; noticeably changing seasons will often stimulate a gravid female to drop a sac.

Also note that a tarantula doesn't need to have been paired to drop a sac. She might also have molted since she was taken from the wild. It might be infertile.

Just in case, I'd treat it as if it's a viable sac. Raise humidity in the enclosure for the time being (don't get the sac wet) and run some searches on caring for a sac and breeding. Good luck!

Oh, and your tarantula is an adult female

Guess i might of got it right when i said look at the size of the abdomen on that mother in relation to the carapace... didn't really think she was a mother. Lol. Congrats if shes got eggs brewing. Has she laid them yet? When i first saw that web i was amazed how round it was, a perfect dome which makes sence now! I first thought it was making a hide if there was no hides in there, and thats a hell of alot of web for a grammostola rosea in 1 night, i would call it that latin name, rather than rosia/portari which you put at the top, grammostola rosie and grammostola porteri is argued to be the same species by the pet trade, but i may be wrong!! now you just need to decide weither you keep the egg sack with the mother, and she'll do the work turning the eggs but theres a risk she'll eat the eggsack if desturbed, feed her well if you do leave it in there. Or you take the eggsack out and turn the eggs yourself, but i would advise against it if you've never done it b4... some mothers will protect the early instar spiderling for along time but it depends on species and temperment, she probably wont eat any if you feed her well and she'll need to replenish her energy store after laying, if it was me since i havn't breeded myself i would just get the hatchlings out later... again congrats if she is pregnant...look forward to seeing the new spiderlings in 5 or 6 weeks..

---------- Post added 08-21-2014 at 11:59 PM ----------

Sorry, thinking of my lp when i said 5-6 weeks.lol. 70 to 90 days for the eggs to hatch for this species, and didn't think it would be an adult at 3½, my girl was huge..ha

Wow, all I can say is I'm mad jealous! Congrats!!