A non-defensive defensive pose?

Snipes · May 29, 2005

A few days ago i was trying to brush my G. rosea away from the water bowl so i could clean and fill it and it raised up a couple of arms in a sort of defensice pose when i touched her with a paint brush. She wouldnt move. When lightly brushing her abdomen with the paint brush, she slowly turned to face it and repeated her pose (sry no pic). She put a leg on the paint brush and i took the brush and touched some of her legs. She was stoic. I even touched her pedipalps but nothing at all happened. It was like a defensive pose without the slightest bit of aggression or defensiveness. I felt it was more of a curious pose. Is this common, or is it because its a rosy?

jbrd · May 29, 2005

I'm gonna go with the wierd rosie thing here, ours gave threat pose yesterday too but it's a rosie lol

CedrikG · May 29, 2005

africans likes this position, well all the agressive or defensive T like this position, for a rosea its not uncommun as they are very docile by period and get freak in the head in other period ( this is not personal experience as I dont own a rosea, but of what I read about it )

Snipes · May 29, 2005

well, i know that. My other one has struck when in the defensive position. It was just so weird with this rosie. It was like a dog "hey hey watcha got there, lemme feel it"

Mattyb · May 29, 2005

One of my male rosies does that sometimes, scares the poop out of my g/f when so cleans the water dish.

-Mattyb

shogun804 · May 29, 2005

IMO its not a defensive pose at all, it is merely using its legs to try and figure out what the hell is invading its space, mine does this all the time with never any aggresion. ive seen avics do it and im sure many other T's do the same thing.

cryptly · May 29, 2005

My rosie does this quite often, espically if I move the tweezers too close while doing tank cleaning. I take it as a "I don't mind you near me, but just not too near" pose. I wouldn't call it a defensive pose, since she moves so slowly when she does it, and if she gets too bugged by the tweezers she'll just slowly move away a few steps.

Jeri · May 31, 2005

My rose's have done this many times. On the other hand, they have also decided to strike under the same circumstances. So, the weird rose thing applies. Sometimes they want to bite, sometimes they seem to be pretending to be a "scary" statue.

Jeri

Jmadson13 · May 31, 2005

I'd imagine it's more testing the intrusion more of an inquiring "who is it?" than "back off!" which would probably be more leg flicking or bearing of fangs. Rosies are always funny though

Mandi · Jun 1, 2005

mine feels the tweezers up all the time, i think shes going to seduce them, and spawn some metal hybrid tarantula species

Apocalypstick · Jun 1, 2005

shogun804 said:
IMO its not a defensive pose at all, it is merely using its legs to try and figure out what the hell is invading its space, mine does this all the time with never any aggresion. ive seen avics do it and im sure many other T's do the same thing.

Bingo!!!!!!!

Snipes · Jun 1, 2005

well, i like to handle my tarantulas. When i see something like this, it translates as "Maybe tomorrow" for me. Is it necessary to think this way? i try to respect my t's as much as i can, so on seeing this behavior i wont hold them. Do you suppose it would be ok to hold them after seeing this sort of display?

cryptly · Jun 1, 2005

Snipes said:
well, i like to handle my tarantulas. When i see something like this, it translates as "Maybe tomorrow" for me. Is it necessary to think this way? i try to respect my t's as much as i can, so on seeing this behavior i wont hold them. Do you suppose it would be ok to hold them after seeing this sort of display?

I wouldn't. The way I see it, the T is telling me they really don't want to be bothered at the moment, but is willing to tolerate my presence in the enclosure. Unless it's some sort of emergency that requires you to move the T at that exact moment, let it be and try again a little later.

Jmadson13 · Jun 2, 2005

I'm going to agree and say it's prefered to not handle my spiders unless they really need a close examination. In the case of examining booklungs, mouth parts, etc.

A non-defensive defensive pose?

Snipes

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