Any pokie is special in its own right. Scarab taught me not to be scared of them as they are not aggressive, just defensive if cornered. Handle them with respect, stay calm and you will be fine.

I had a P ornata male that I tried to rehouse, I could not get it of it's piece of wood (decoration) by any means. I ended up taking the entire piece of wood from the bottle (it was a large coffee bottle) and placed it in it's new enclosure by hand with the 8cm specimen sticking to it like glue. The pokie only climbed off hours later. Never had any threat poses from them either.

A great tip for rehousing any fast species (such as pokies, psalmos, etc.) is to do it on the lawn. My P cambridgei female is very agro, and she even stopped her threat poses and strikes when she touched the grass. Immediately ran into her new home as soon as she touched the container's side.

With regards to the C huahini. Just keep in mind that since it is a terrestrial and somewhat opportunistic burrower, it might not be very visible and certainly not a display spider. Some pokies are very elusive as well, but chances (in my limited experience) are that the pokies will be out more often.

For me personally, the best display arboreal baboon (not that there are many of them) is the Heteroscodra maculata. Arboreal like a pokie, stocky build like a terrestrial. High contrast colours when mature, fast as hell, one of the most potent venom, looks demonically mean. Grows to manageable size (15cm or so) and grows fairly quick. Certainly not one to handle.
www.tarantulas.co.za/tarantupedia/stroma...eteroscodra-maculata
One of my favourite species. The photo of it in the Tarantula Keeper's guide is one of my favourite tarantula photos overall. Here is it with Stan's rant: people.ucalgary.ca/~schultz/stansrant.html

Thanks again e'ry Body!

@Scarab, you will DEFINITELY be hearing from me on the 16th. Excited like a Pedo in a playground! Gonna start saving and hopefully one of those two beauty's will be mine (maybe both, haha!)

@Synergy, thanks for the grass tip! Def gonna be needing that one! Got a Tapinauchenius cupreus (Violet Tree sp) this morning from my mom as a surprise, apparently they're fast as hell! Haha. And I don't mind the burrowing. I think the intricacy of their lairs is rad!

Too cool! Thanks guys

Zam_Boney wrote: Thanks Cerat! I appreciate the info!

I saw a C.darlingi at Wits a few months back for an eco-day where the Spider Club of SA came through. Needless to say, it was me in a sea of school kids, haha. What a truly beautiful T. I was told they only burrow once in their life and after they lose it, their life almost becomes meaningless. Is this true?

I was told the same thing when I was there I thought this cannot be true or else we wont have many spiders would we hahaha?