bscheidt1020
Arachnoknight
- Joined
- Jan 5, 2014
- Messages
- 183
I have been holding out on everybody here and I am sorry. I want to discuss some really interesting behavior with everybody to see what you guys think or if you have ever observed this in your own tarantulas. My 3, ~2 inch B. Albopilosums have some cork bark in their deli cups that protrudes above the surface of the eco earth. I placed it there to allow for burrowing underneath. Typical, outgoing Albopilosums, or Oh Bope A Lopas, according to my wife, they never burrowed. What they did do, in addition to shoveling dirt around to adjust the fung shui of their homes, was somehow chip pieces of bark off to make more room for.....doing spider stuff? I did not know what I was seeing at first, thinking it was pale, dried out substrate. As more appeared, I realized it was small pieces of cork bark. Coincidentally, I observed little scoop like dents in the pieces of cork in their enclosures. My humble opinion is that they dug little pieces off the chunks of bark using their fangs. I believe the did this because I filled the substrate about 2/3 up the cup and the cork interfered with their walking space on the surface. I believe my curlys wanted more space on the surface and since they could not walk over the bark due to the lid of the cup forming a low ceiling, they "chewed" clean through the bark, making more room in the cup...maybe a bit less substrate and smaller bark pieces next time to make their homes more roomy. Bold species like these may prefer the open space as opposed to clutter to hide in....anyway, as much as I would name this behavior after myself, like any good, self absorbed scientist, I think I would rather refer to it as beavering. Beavers are a large semi-aquatic rodent renowned for their propensity for and ability to, effectively chew through wood, hence beavering.....I am ridiculous. I am sure some of you may have seen similar behavior but I have yet to hear any mention of it. This makes me feel like an arachnologist and not just some dude that likes to keep spiders. Awesome.