Psalmopoeus pulcher

Order: Araneae
Suborder: Mygalomorphae
Family: Theraphosidae
Subfamily: Psalmopoeinae
Genus: Psalmopoeus
Species: Psalmopoeus pulcher, Petrunkevitch, 1925

Psalmopoeus pulcher is a middle sized tarantula, which can grow up to 6 cm body length. In its genus it's one of the bigger species. The coloration of juvenile specimens is golden-orange with a dark brown abdomen. When adult, this species changes its coloration. Females keep their orange to golden-beige legs with a golden carapax. The abdomen changes its coloration to light orange with a black backend. Also a black stripe in the middle of the abdomen is visible. When males reach adulthood they get a a greyish to light salmon/orange coloration. The abdomen also is really bright and shows only slight hues of beige.

This species is a fast spider, which flees in its burrow when it disturbs. With continuing threat, this spider starts to bite. Even though it is a tarantula from the New World, it doesn't have urticating hairs and therefore defends with a painful bite.

Psalmopoeus pulcher is an arboreal spider which prefers to sit above the ground, which should be taken care when keeping this species in a terrarium.

This species is found in the tropical forests of Panama. There it inhabits in arboreal habitats above the ground. Psalmopoeus pulchers web entrances can be found in trees, in crevices of bark and wood, between leaves etc.

Since this species lives in a really tropical environment, it prefers temperatures of around 25 - 30 °C with a quite high humidity level.

Like other tarantulas of this size, Psalmopoeus pulcher prefers to hunt for big insects. The main food source of this species are locusts, beetles, butterflies and crickets. Other than that small vertebrates like frogs, lizards, snakes and birds are eaten by P. pulcher.

Most of the day this species hides in its burrow/web and waits for prey coming near it. The movements of the prey cause small vibrations on the substrate as on the spiders webs, which are felt by the spiders hair. Via those vibrations the spider locates the prey and quickly grabs and bites it with its chelicera. It then inserts a digestive secrete which also contains a slightly potent poison. This poison is mainly dangerous for animals in its food spectrum and isn't dangerous to humans. It is comparable with the sting of a bee.

After injecting the digestive secretes the prey starts to dissolve. The chewing movements of the spiders chelicera accelerate this process. If the prey is liquid, the tarantula can suck it up through the small mouth opening. Mostly only a small ball of cheratinous pieces, furr or bones is left over and the spider will dump this outside of his burrow.

This species eats rather much for a tarantula but can stay without food for over a month, if it is big enough. Also some weeks before molting, this tarantula stops with food intake and closes its burrow till it is done molting.

In captivity this species can be fed with almost all feeder animals available on the market. Depending on the size of the spider, fruit flies, meal worms, buffalo worms, zoophobas, crickets, locust and many more can be fed. It should only be taken care that not eaten food gets removed in case the spider is shortly before or after a molt. When spiders molt, they are soft and defenseless, which make it an easy prey for omni- and carnivorous feeder animals, like crickets and meal worms. In general the spider should be fed so much, that the abdomen is around 1/3 bigger than the carapax. Overfeeding can cause to fast growth, which results sometimes in death. To fat spiders also can get damaged easy if they fall from a higher elevation and hit the abdomen on a hard or pointy surface.

Other than food intake, P. pulcher also needs to drink water. It is possible to spray the terrarium with fresh water every few days or by giving it a small drinking bowl. Which should always be clean and filled with fresh water. Spiders tend to poop into water, which can cause bacterial growth in the drinking dish, which should be avoided.

The terrarium for an adult Psalmopoeus pulcher should measure at least 20 x 30 x 40 cm (l x d x h). Juvenile specimens you can keep in smaller terrariums or plastic boxes. To prevent fungus growth and waterlogging, it is advisable to ventilate the containers double. Best is to use trapdoor terrariums with a vertical opening. With horizontal doors, the possibility of the spider, opening the door, is given (if not fixed).

Add a small layer (4 - 5 cm) of substrate to help regulate the humidity better and to give the animals the possibility to build a tunnel below the substrate. Since this species is not a ground dwelling spider, more than 4 - 5 cm soil is not necessary. You can use plant soil, peat or similar substrates for this. Try to avoid to sandy or rocky substrates.

The spider needs a place to hide and built its nest. Pieces of cork or cork tunnels are ideal, since it doesn't grow mold fast and is easy to clean. Other than that also pieces of bark or branches can be used. It is possible to put plants in the terrarium but it may be that the spider rips them out and moves them away if they are not meant to be near the burrow.

P. pulcher is night active and therefore needs no light (except there is no other heat source or if there are plants in the terrarium). To reach the desired temperature of over 25 °C, different methods are possible. Heating mats should be avoided. The best way to heat terrariums is over the rooms radiator. This avoids overheating of the terrariums in most cases. Next to the right temperature, the humidity should also be never to low. Just spray every few days some water with a spraying bottle into the terrarium. The right humidity helps the spider to molt successful and feel comfortable.

Every work in the terrarium (cleaning, cutting plants, removing things) should be done with a pair of tweezers. Psalmopoeus pulcher is a fast spider and sometimes gets scared fast out of the burrow, where it can end up on your hand. Some people shake their hand or make fast movements as a reaction, which can cause the spider to bite.

It is possible to determine the sex of juvenile specimens over the spermatheka. This is an internal storage in the abdomen for the males sperm, which only females show. From outside this is not visible but can be seen in intact molts of the spider. A microscope can help to take a look at smaller molts of spiders. Other than that, males show a ventral bald spot on the underside of the abdomen. This is sometimes better visible but sometimes also really hard to differentiate from females of the same age.

Ones P. pulcher reaches maturity, sexing is easy. The biggest difference is the coloration and body shape. Females keep a more contrasty coloration with more orange and gold in it, where as males get greyish with hues of salmon, beige or orange. Adult males have longer, thinner legs in comparison to females of the same age and don't show such a massive abdomen.

Adult males show additional two pairs of new organs. On the pedipalps, which is the second pair of extremities, males have pear shaped, hard bulbi, which are used to collect their sperm out of the sperm net and fertilize the female. Additionally to those bulbi, males also develop tibia apophysia on the first pair of legs. These spike-like growths on the tibia of the leg, help the male to grab the chelicera of the female during the act of mating.

Other than physical changes also the behaviour of both sexes start to get different. While females keep their secluded lifestyle in burrows, males start to be more active, wandering around and looking for a potential female to mate. Shaking, drumming and vibrating movements of the males body and legs, help to get attention from females, which mostly respond with vibrating movements.

While males only molt till they are adult, females change their exoskeleton as long as they live. Males mostly don't live longer than a year after they reached maturity, where as female P. pulcher reach ages of over 10 - 15 years.

Once male and female went through the maturity molt, both are ready to mate. Males tend to reach sexual maturity faster than females.

The male starts to build a sperm net. A little hammock - like web build, which is made between to surfaces. The males ejaculates on top of the net via his epigastric groove on the underside of the abdomen. The male crawls then upside down under the net and collects the sperm with its bulbi, which are attached on the pedipalps. Once this process is finished the male is loaded and ready for mating.

Males get really active in this part of their live and can even be seen wandering around during day time. The male wanders around in the hope of picking up pheromones of sexually mature females. Those pheromones are mostly spun into the females net in the entrance area of its burrow.

Once the male picks up those pheromones it starts to drum and vibrate with its pedipalps and legs. Shaking of the whole body can also be observed. The female feels those vibrations and reacts with slightly different drumming and vibrations. The male follows the females lead in front of its burrow. The female comes in most cases out of the burrow for mating. Now both sexes start to touch each other with fast leg movements. When the female is ready to conceive she spreads her chelicera. The male hooks into the females chelicera with its tibial apophysia and lifts the female up. This allows him to reach the females epigastral groove with his sperm filled bulbi. He inserts both of them with a strong pulling force.

Once the mating act is over, the male tries to flee, since he ends up as dinner for the female in most cases. In the case of surviving, he searches for a peaceful spot to clean its bulbi and fill them again for fertilizing other females.

In most cases it takes the female some months before it starts to build an egg sac. It than closes all the entrances to its burrow with its web and starts to web a mat of silk. With additional strings and layers of webs it takes on the shape of a bowl. In there the female lays up to 300, yellow eggs. They than get covered with silk and the sides of the web - bowl to form a golf ball sized cocoon.

The female keeps the cocoon between her chelicera and protects it against predators. Sometimes females stop eating till the babies hatch. The cocoon gets rotated several times a day to avoid single eggs to get pressure damage and sticking together. After around a month the larvae are far enough developed to steal the cocoon from the mother. When the cocoon gets opened mostly the larvae are hatched. In this state, they are called "eggs with legs" which describes pretty good how they look. The larvae can be kept in the opened cocoon in an incubating box till they molt and start to look like miniatures of their mother. Sometimes it helps to give the female a small ball of kitchen paper to simulate a cocoon, which prevents her searching nervously around for the real one the whole day. When females get to much stressed or the eggs don't develop good, she eats in most cases the cocoon.

Once the spiders reach the F1 (the first molt after "eggs with legs"), it is wise to separate them into small, transparent containers to avoid cannibalism. Youngsters need food in form of fruit flies (or similar) almost every day and are more sensible to wrong parameters of temperature and humidity. In general the youngsters should be kept the same way as the adults, just in smaller containers, which helps to have a better overview over them. The bigger they get, the bigger the container has to be.