C. schioedtei/thorelli?

In the past week I have seen two different tarantulas being sold as C. schioedtei/thorelli. The first has a green carapace and black stripes on the abdomen. The second is more colorful than the first, it has a gold carapace and a gold abdomen with black stripes and red setae. Which one is the REAL Malaysian Earthtiger?

Click on the links below to see pictures.

http://www.birdspiders.com/index.cf...l&imageid=15B02BDCKD0B7KAEC2K14B6EDF538A71954

http://www.birdspiders.com/index.cf...l&imageid=73E97A42G3048G23A9G27E959A681482590

hmm good question

I say : which ever you want it to be the real Malaysian EarthTiger

they're both very pretty and awesome.

Your definitely right! The gold one it is. But I still would like to know which is the real Earthtiger.

They are both "real malaysian" earth tigers as they both origin from Malaysia. C. thorelli is not available in the hobby contrary to many sales lists and many persons belief. The relatively commonly available Cyriopagopus species often sold as "C. thorelli" is in fact C. schioedtei - which is this one:

http://www.birdspiders.com/index.cf...4B6EDF538A71954

This one was established in the hobby by numerous imports in the late nineties and early in the new millenium and few succesfull breedings by many european breeders including myself and a few american breeders. It was imported and sold as C. thorelli for a few years but paratype material were examined by Volker von Wirth and the species sold in the hobby were found to be similar to that of C. schioedtei.

The other one - the black one is a so far unidentified Cyriopagopus species from Malaysia. It may be available from certain suppliers but to label it C. thorelli at this point would be a grave mistake. It _could_ well be the real C. thorelli sensu Simon 1901 but as long as this material has not been compared with the type material it can only be ID'ed Cyriopagopus sp. "black". For the time speaking a large exuvia has been supplied to me by Rick West and I have examined and drawn the relevant characters by now and it will be sent on to Volker for further examination. With some luck and effort we will be able to compare it with the type material of the real C. thorelli and see if it shares the key characters. Only then will we be certain whether it is or is not - C. thorellli - if it is not - well - then we will be back at point zero - almost - and will have to examine this specimen with almost all other known malaysian theraphosid type specimen as the taxonomical situation regarding the theraphosids in this region is a great mess.

Bottomline - both specimens are truly authentic malaysian earth tigers - though the earth tiger label is very wrong as all known Cyriopagopus species has been found living strictly arboreal in nature ;-) Malaysian tree tigers would be more fitting ;-)

If you know a source that can supply me with more live material of the black variety:

http://www.birdspiders.com/index.cf...7E959A681482590

I would appreciate this very much as I need more specimens to be able to map interspecific variations.

Best regards
Søren Rafn

Originally posted by phormingochilus


Bottomline - both specimens are truly authentic malaysian earth tigers - though the earth tiger label is very wrong as all known Cyriopagopus species has been found living strictly arboreal in nature ;-) Malaysian tree tigers would be more fitting ;-)



Best regards
Søren Rafn

Click to expand...

>>So housing them....house as you would any aboreal....as you would poecilotheria for example??..peace..

Originally posted by Phormingochilus

Bottomline - both specimens are truly authentic malaysian earth tigers - though the earth tiger label is very wrong as all known Cyriopagopus species has been found living strictly arboreal in nature ;-) Malaysian tree tigers would be more fitting ;-)

Best regards
Søren Rafn



Thanks for all that information. Wow, you have more than helped me so let me return the favor by giving you the email address and name of the person that was selling the black Malaysian Earthtiger...uh...Treetiger. I'll send you a PM. Thanks again Soren.

>>So housing them....house as you would any aboreal....as you would poecilotheria for example??..peace..<<

More or less. But Cyriopagopus spp. comes from way more humid environments than does most Poecilotheria spp. One way to get around this is to create a cross-over set-up:

What I use:
Cage dimensions (in cm.): 35-40 H x 20 W x 30 D. Frontal sliding panes, w/ ventilation strip (appr. 1-2 cm. wide running along the entire width of the cage) on the lower front and the upper rear top glass.

For Pokes I use a hollow cork oak branch (internal ø ca. 7-10cm) stuck into a shallow (5 cm) substrate. Pokes generally can take a great deal of drought - usually coming from an enviromnent where there is excessive drought for more than half the year. Exceptions would be P. subfusca and P. smithi that need cool conditions and a high relative air humidity, but not soaked conditions. With this setup I can see when it is time to water the cage when the pokes start throwing dirt out of the branch and webbing excessively (digging for moisture, or getting ready to molt or lay eggs)

For tunnelling species I have a vertical setup. I pack the substrate against the rear wall VERY tightly while moist. Thus creating a slightly sloping near-vertical "wall of dirt" that takes up half of the entire volume of the cage. I lean a gnarled root across and push a hole with my fingers which the spider usually adopt and enlarge. There will always be sufficient moisture in the deeper confines even when the surface is bone dry. This is by far the most natural setup, which I guess anyone who've been collecting T's in the wild will agree with. Bonus is that many hard to see species will sit in their entrance when the lights are out, and especially Chilobrachys spp. that can be hard to monitor due to their extensive webbing are easy to see and maintain and little silk will be produced outside their burrow - thus keeping the front pane clean and transparent ;-)

For Cyriopagopus I mix the two setups: I create a vertical wall of dirt slightly less in volume than used for the typical tunnelling spider - "only" taking up 1/3 of the total volume. Against this I lean the one half of a hollow cork oak branch (internal ø ca. 10-15 cm.) cut through lenghtwise so that there is created a space between the cork and the substrate. This gives the spider the possibility to expand the hide away and pad the walls and entrance with dry debris (as they do it in nature) furthermore you can control the humidity easily by watering the substrate something which is a bit more difficult if adopting the poke setup. The vertical branch will be the resting place of choice for the spider and you will often see it resting head down waiting for passing prey.

The "wall of dirt" or a deep substrate ensure that there will always be a high humidity in the lower confines of the spiders hide away unless when the substrate is bone dry.

I work with racks of cages lit with light bulbs and heavily vegetated with tropical plants. I have a "horde" of tropical isopods/woodlice in each cage to keep fungus and mold to a minimum. I can see on the plants when I need to soak the cages. When they start to look "sad" hanging a bit I water the cages.


>>so let me return the favor by giving you the email address and name of the person that was selling the black Malaysian Earthtiger...uh...Treetiger. I'll send you a PM.<<

Hi Yoshi. In case you haven't got my private mail try: phormingochilus@hotmail.com

Best regards
Søren Rafn