88 Legs

N+1 is a well-known concept among cyclists: the answer to the question, “How many bikes do I need?” is always “n+1″, where n is the number of bikes currently owned.

It seems that something similar applies for spiders, too, except possibly on a larger scale. We bought our first spider exactly a month ago; now we have 11.

WARNING: There will be pictures and descriptions of these spiders below the jump. Please don’t click through if you don’t want to see them!

Here they are, then, in order of acquisition:

It all started with this little dude:

Mr Satu’s greenbottle blue (Chromatopelma cyaneopubescens), who still doesn’t have a name other than Spidy. Here it is in a temporary container while Mr S tidied its home up.

Then came Mort, my very own little spider:

He has moved house twice since then and now seems quite happy where he is. I say “he”, but I’m still not sure.

Then, Mr Satu picked up two more:

This is his Grammostola pulchripes (Chaco golden knee), which chose this moment to start burrowing to hide from the camera. Guess what it’s called?

And this is an Orange baboon tarantula (Pterinochilus murinus), also known as the Orange Bitey Thing, or OBT for short. They have something of a reputation, hence the nickname. This one has been pretty chilled out so far; actually it wasn’t terribly happy when we first got it — it just sat in one corner of the enclosure and wouldn’t eat anything. We eventually realised it was probably a bit cold for the spiders, even with their jars inside a fish tank with a heat mat on the back, so we bought a big vivarium with sliding doors and a big heat mat to stick into it.

Here’s my second tarantula:

This is Socks. The picture is not wonderful, but it’s the best one I have so far that shows off her colours.[1] She’s a Brachypelma boehmei (Mexican fire leg), and she’s about 3 1/2 inches big (she’ll get to about 6). I thought a slightly bigger spider would be interesting to watch while waiting for my little dude to grow up. Again I’m not actually sure about her sex yet, but I’ll call her a “she” in hope!

Mr Satu couldn’t resist getting this one at the same time as mine:

A salmon pink birdeater (Lasiodora parahybana) which is really quite tiny at the moment but will grow up to be about 8 inches big.

The only one I haven’t got a picture of at the moment is Skeletor, Mr Satu’s Ephebopus uatuman — their common name is Emerald skeleton, hence the name! It’s also very small and tends to burrow if you take its jar out, which is why there aren’t any pictures.

Last weekend, I finally got the spider I’d been looking for ever since I first saw pictures of it:

This is Merlin, my Avicularia versicolor. Right now it’s bright blue, but when it’s grown up it’ll have an iridescent green carapace, red abdomen and fuzzy, purplish legs. It’s the only one of my spiders I’ve actually handled so far; when I rehoused it on Saturday evening it decided to scamper across my hands for a bit before going in its new tub. I’m in love!

At the same time I picked up my tiniest spider yet — even smaller than Mr S’s little one:

This is Binky, a Nhandu chromatus (Brazilian red and white). When grown up, it’ll have red and black stripy legs and a fuzzy red abdomen. Why yes, I like interestingly coloured tarantulas!

This is the last of Mr Satu’s little babies, a Heteroscodra maculata (Ornamental baboon, or Togo starburst baboon).

Finally, this is our Poecilotheria miranda (Bengal spotted ornamental):

They’re not very keen on light, so it’s huddled into a little ball in the bottom right — you can just about see its stripy legs. These are zippy little things (and not so little, actually, though this one is mostly legs), so we have to be careful when opening the box — and rehousing it will be interesting. But it is a very pretty spider!

So those are our new babies, and I think we’re both agreed that 11 is enough for now. I’m happy now I have my little Merlin, and Mr S has some spiders to name. Suggestions on a postcard, please!

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[1] I have added more substrate since then; even a short fall can kill a tarantula, and terrestrial ones are not very good at climbing — but they do anyway.

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