Got to see some hentzi mate in the wild and a lot more!

A little bit about my trip. I moved recently from Oregon (land of no tarantulas) to Colorado. After hearing rumors of mass migrations of mms starting in mid Sept I decided to investigate! I headed out a bit south and east of my location here in Colorado Springs, and once I started seeing areas of undisturbed land by the freeway I just picked a place to pull off. I thought spotting a burrow was going to be hard, but NO! They were EVERYWHERE. I was on a patch of land maybe 150 yards long and 50 yards wide parallel to train tracks next to the freeway and I had to have seen at least 100+ active burrows. I am sure I missed plenty too. I saw all stages of growth with the exception of slings. Some burrows had molts pressed to the side walls near the top of the burrow (thought that was cool to see). Any burrow I found webbed shut had a recently mature male inside. Many of the burrows had remains of beetles all over the place. At one point I found what I called a tarantula man camp lol. It was a fairly small area maybe 20 sq feet or so, but there were about 30 males living in that area of all stages, mostly immature, but I did find at least 2 mms there too. One tickle at the burrows entrance with a blade of grass and these guys would fly out to attack it. I mean ALL the way out of the burrow. I am sure I missed something, but that is the bulk of it!

(interesting note about the climate here, it was about 95 when I was out that day but that did not deter these guys much, the second the sun went down the temps dropped by 35 degrees within an hr. Winters here can be rough too with the temps hitting -20 last winter) These guys are tough!

Hope you enjoy!

Juvie Male burrow,


And its resident,


Adult female and juvie burrows side by side,


MM burrow,


Wandering MM,


You can see how dry it is out there right now, but his burrow is actually in a low spot that gets flooded! (juvie male)


Adult female hanging out on top of her burrow, (bad pic had to take it from about 15 yards away)


And she ran when I took one more step toward her,


Habitat,


More Hab,


Female,


And the pair I watched mate! I spotted the wandering male just as he was approaching her burrow. He coaxed her out over a period of 20-30 mins and did the deed! I chopped it down to the highlights! It was just after sunset when this occurred, and I was getting absolutely bombarded by biting bugs so it was a little rough. Plus I had to shoot the video with my iphone so the quality is not the best. But I am still glad I got to see it! (and the mm did escape scott free lol)

http://youtu.be/KWGDD7i_6Dg

Thanks! I'm envious.

It was a pretty awesome day. I mean physically I was slowly being tortured. Being from Oregon I am not used to that kind of heat for long periods. But it was worth it! Plus its not every day you see Ts doing the deed in the wild! There is a section a bit farther down from the area I was in, its scheduled to be plowed and paved over. I want to go out there see if I can locate anything, and if I do I want to maybe try and relocate some, but I also want to take some plaster out there and cast some burrows.

Great post. I'm so envious too. That must have been a great experience. Thanks for sharing.

GG80 said:

Great post. I'm so envious too. That must have been a great experience. Thanks for sharing.

Click to expand...

I like that I can go back any time because they live where I do!

That's really cool. I didn't know A. hentzi ranged that far west. We have them here in Arkansas. Due to development their numbers have been declining dramatically over the years. All the older folks say they used to migrate in the thousands. Now it's hard to find them in areas. I'm going to look at a house today. If I get it, I plan on helping the native population out.

Talkenlate04 said:

I like that I can go back any time because they live where I do!

Click to expand...

That must be great. Unfortunately there are no wild tarantulas in Ireland

GG80 said:

That must be great. Unfortunately there are no wild tarantulas in Ireland

Click to expand...

Did St. Patrick chase them out along with the snakes?

My trip yesterday was spent avoiding mm's on the road! lol

Awesome stuff! Hang out there enough and I bet you'd run into a Pepsis wasp attack

Nice! This thread was the sole reason I added one to my order tonight from Jamies.

Great pictures, mate. Glad to see you are back

Great post, awesome pics.

Awesome!

I have family down that way, looks like it's time for a visit! :biggrin: Great pictures.

Today I went out and cast a tarantula burrow with plaster. The female was relocated to the other side of the train tracks because where she is now is set to be plowed and paved. With temps in this area ranging from well in to the negatives in winter, and up into the triple digits in the summer, I wanted to see the inner workings of this burrow that keeps them safe! And here it is!

This was FAR harder that I expected btw.






I poured cast into one other burrow, but this one took me so dang long I will have to go back to get that other one. That one I will try hard to get in one piece.

---------- Post added 09-25-2014 at 12:12 AM ----------

More video fun!

http://youtu.be/Viq6nMFlL2Y?list=UU8tR8VuUFlkCFBcQiIJfV-Q

http://youtu.be/H5cVkt66bKQ?list=UU8tR8VuUFlkCFBcQiIJfV-Q

Thanks! Great info.

Talkenlate04 said:

Today I went out and cast a tarantula burrow with plaster. The female was relocated to the other side of the train tracks because where she is now is set to be plowed and paved. With temps in this area ranging from well in to the negatives in winter, and up into the triple digits in the summer, I wanted to see the inner workings of this burrow that keeps them safe! And here it is!

Click to expand...

This is the kind of material that needs to be published in a journal and need to see more of! Good job! I highly recommend repeating these castings a few more times, taking more pictures at different angles, and getting more detailed measurements then writing a nice summary of your observations for publication. I'm sure our friends overseas would really enjoy seeing this so if you decide to publish, I recommend the Journal of the British Tarantula Society.

Thank you for taking the time to do this.

- Lonnie

Thanks I appreciate that. It could be something Id do. One thing I will say is I dread going to dig out the other two burrows I cast already. Its an utter nightmare getting the casting out lol. I think I had a 5 foot wide hole by time I was done with this one. (and note to self bring gloves next time.) I have been closely monitoring the temps in the area and its astonishing really how tough these guys are.

It is also interesting that some friends of mine report males wandering in early spring in the more southern parts of the US (NM, TX and AZ) but up here the males are maturing now and finding females before winter. This means there are two distinct breeding cycles for these guys. Down south they mate in the spring, eggs develop through the hot summer, and I suspect egg sacs are dropped once the nuclear heat of summer has passed and fall/winter begins. Here they will mate before winter, the males will be killed by the cold eventually, (or the abundance of wasps out on the hunt) the females will then be subjected a pretty brutal winter, then as things warm up in spring they will drop sacs before the monsoon season kicks off.

There are supposedly 4 species here in CO, I intend to find them all! But that just means I have a lot more time left wandering in the desert lol.

Great thread so far! I used to see the MM Aphonopelma hentzis in OK quite often. Not so much now that I'm in MO. Seeing them mate must have been amazing! A sight rarely seen, indeed.

Now...the twist here is the burrow castings. Very intriguing. Definitely looking forward to further developments on this.

Guess we cant worry to much about Ts molting in small spaces! I look at that and still wonder how she pulled it off in that small of a space!