NOTES ON THE COMMUNAL REARING OF Poecilotheria rufilata

Please take note that I do not recommend the communal keeping of Poecilotheria sp. (or any other species) of tarantulas, at least not for the moment. Those interested in pursuing this generally unexplored facet of tarantula husbandry should remember that cannibalism within such communal colonies will always be a possibility. This experiment is being conducted in hopes that any information gleaned from it may be of assistance to others looking to keep such spiders communally.

08/15/2008

My apologies to all of you for the lateness of this article - work has consistently gotten in the way of my websites over the past couple of months. At any rate, it's high time I started an article for this beautiful little group.

Poecilotheria rufilata is a species I've wanted to have in my collection for night on 10 years now, but have never been able to acquire due to their overall rarity and relatively lofty price (from $40 to $60 as spiderlings on many popular dealer's sites). Luckily the same person from whom I purchased my group of Poecilotheria pederseni stepped up to this challenge as well, offering P. rufilata at a decent price and, thusly, allowing me to purchase a good number of them.

How good a number, you ask? Eleven. The spiderlings had been prepayed for before they were even at 2nd instar and ready to ship - as such, when I received them on 06/19/2008 they had never been separated from one another.

The first thing you notice about Poecilotheria rufilata, even as spiderlings, is there size - even at 2nd instar they were nearing an inch in length and very leggy. The next thing you notice is the stark difference in coloration from other Poecilotheria sp. - at that size their palette is dominated with light browns and mossy colors. To my eyes, this is the most aesthetically attractive of all the Poecilotheria sp., with P. subfusca and P. ornata running close behind.

For a starter enclosure for the group I decided upon a clear cylindrical plastic container 3.5" in diameter and 7.5" in height - if memory serves, it was the packaging for some river rocks my girlfriend and I purchased from Target some time ago. An inch and a half of moist coco fiber was put in the bottom of the container as substrate - into that was placed a moderately sized chunk of cork bark roughly 2" wide and 5" tall. This enclosure was set up under the same principles as those for the P. regalis and P. pederseni before it - that a smaller enclosure and limited number of hiding spots is helpful in preventing the spiderlings from establishing their own individual territorial behaviors.

This group is the first of my ever-growing collection to be fed exclusively from my new colony of Blatta lateralis roaches (common name for these is Red Runners or Turkistan Roaches) - I introduced 20-30 first or second instar roaches into the tank three to four times a week. All of the Poecilotheria sp. I've kept have been voracious eaters, but these P. rufilata may be the most voracious yet - the instant the prey hits the tank floor the entire group goes into hysteria, running all about the enclosure and picking up as many of the tiny roaches as they can in their equally tiny jaws.

Other than their seemingly insatiable appetites, the behavior of this group has been very much in line with that of the previous two groups before them. Within two days of being introduced into their enclosure they had begun webbing profusely, creating a maze of spiderling-sized tunnels wrapping sometimes entirely around the cork bark and accented here and there with chunks of substrate. As with the others, they are much more consistently visible than Poecilotheria sp. I have kept individually and half or more of them can often be seen relaxing on the face of the cork bark.

The communal feeding noted previously in the P. regalis setup (and even, surprisingly, among the 3-3.5" juveniles in the P. pederseni setup) has been very apparent in this new group of P. rufilata, with upwards of five individuals often witnessed coalescing about the same prey item. During a recent moment of curiosity I introduced an adult male Turkistan roach into the enclosure - within two seconds one of the members of the group had captured it and others joined in on the feast shortly thereafter. Once the prey was rendered harmless, it was divided up between those who had assisted in its capture.

Just two weeks after their arrival (roughly two and a half since they had molted into 2nd instar) the entire group was in premolt - over the course of the next three days they had all molted out from around .80" to ~1.25". They were fed heavily in the latter three weeks of July and first week in August - as of now they have begun molting again. Five of the eleven have finished as of this writing and have acquired a new size of 2.50", double their previous size. Amazingly (to me), much of their adult coloration is already in place, even so far as that I can recognize the under-leg bands - the metallic blue under the first joint of the forelegs is easily visible in the newly molted spiderlings. They are already matching the Poecilotheria regalis group I have, mm for mm, in size - that group is their elder by well over a month.

As has been the case with my previous two groups, no intraspecific aggression has been noted, with the specimens seemingly positively amicable and constantly seen laying about one another in their tube web or huddled together on the face of the cork bark. Even when molting the group stays close, with one specimen caught attempting to make its molting mat on top of another recently molted specimen. As always, any changes in the above will be noted in future notes.

FIRST RE-HOUSING 10/15/2008

As noted above, I have been rather amazed by the growth rate of all of my Poecilotheria groups, but none so much as these rufilata. They've been quickly outgrowing their original home for two months since these notes were first published - that cage had become so cluttered that I was starting to wonder whether or not the group would have sufficient room to molt once the time came again. As such, the decision was made to go ahead with re-locating them to a (much) larger container.

How large? 1.5 gallons - roughly six times the volume of the previous container. The new home is a renovated Rubbermaid #5161 model flex-lid cereal storage container (picked up at Target for under $7.00) that is, at present, the largest non-glass housing I currently own. Ventilation was soldered all around the upper rim of the container as well as all the way down to the substrate level (roughly 10 rows of four 1/8" holes each) on one end. Into this was placed roughly 1.25" of coconut fiber substrate, compacted and moistened, and a large piece of cork bark (averaging 3.5" wide by 10" long) to serve as the one available hide. I expect I will be picking up another of the same container type in the near future so that I can re-house my group of 15 Poecilotheria regalis - but that's a subject for another day.

All eleven specimens were relocated without issue, the majority of them simply by removing the piece of cork from the old container, placing it in the new, and coaxing them off. The remainder were moved through a variety of tried-and-tested prodding methods. After all of them had been moved to their new home, prey was introduced (~10 mid-size Turkistan roaches) and the lid was snapped on.

The specimens were expectedly inactive for a short while after the move, choosing to huddle together along the inside bottom edge of the cork bark. Within forty minutes, however, the entirity of the group was on the move, exploring with front legs waving about in the air and creating the bare beginnings of a web retreat. Several took to feeding on the available prey items at this time as well. The group seems no more skittish than is the norm and no ill effects from the move have been observed thus far.

It's difficult for me to say when the last time molting occurred was - some certainly appear to have while others ook more or less unchanged. The average size for the group, at present, is hovering at just over 2.00", with the largest specimens topping off at around 2.50". They have shown themselves to be quite good company with one another, readily sharing food (recently I observed two or three specimens actually exchanging undigested food boluses, the leftovers of two adult Turkistan roaches I offered - a bizarre sight to be sure) and living space with no evidence of intraspecific aggression - more often than not, at least a small number of them can be seen, legs outstretched in the classic Poecilotheria pose, resting on the side of their container.

With my first communal project (4 Poecilotheria pederseni) concluded and its members beginning to reach maturity I feel that I can make a relatively intelligent estimation of when this group's members will begin to reach adulthood. I fully expect the largest members of the group to reach maturity by March of 2009, if not sooner, with the others following along in the few months afterwards. I expect to be working on my first set of breeding notes for the species by April or May.

ADDENDUM:
Unexpectedly (but not so unusual in and of itself), the first new molt since the relocation occurred just half an hour ago. It didn't go entirely as planned - the spiderling (positively sexed via its exuvium as male - rufilata seem far more straight forward than the pederseni specimen I'm presently having such issues sexing) made his molting mat far too high up and with far too little support, causing him to slip just before he could pull his last leg from his old skin. The tip of that foot appears to have been minutely damaged, something I expect to do no great harm - another molt will fix it right as rain. This little male was one of the smaller of the group and has reached a new size of ~2.50", putting it in the same league as the larger specimens.

The molting for this group appears to be following no set pattern at the moment, with members simply molting as the need arises. As such, it may be difficult for me to keep molting records for this group as accurate as even the paltry ones to be found in my first P. pederseni notes. My apologies for that. At any rate, their growth will be measured with any changes noted here as necessary.

This is an on-going project and, as such, this article will be updated periodically to include new notes and observations.