@ tranzoid ...

Your opinion is just that your opinion.

I was commended for a post that was not my information and corrected it. Soooo uhm ...please pardon my honesty?

If a breeding attempt is successful and it is because of the advice of someone else, i make sure to convey their names when asked to share. its called good manners

There is a vast difference between plagiarism (copying copyrighted information and transmitting it publicly without consent) and merely giving credit to someone who made a good point or gave good advice.

If you saw the mentioning of names as a vehicle to enforce a point im afraid you have missed it i quoted a response from a person and added his name. For those who didnt know who he is i added a reference ... :huh: and it sure as heck dont mean i know the person either ...i have found email is a brilliant tool

No where were people called shallow, but i never expected honesty to ilicit such a response!

Unfortunately you have also borderline done what you have accused some of doing judging intentions based on your own assumptions and making your own conclusions.

Having said that :blink: (and hoping it is not misinterpreted again) ... can the posts going forward please stick to the topic at hand. :huh:

Hi
scorpion wrote:

Now, my understanding is that all African "tarantulas" are referred to as Baboon Spiders. Anything from outside SA borders is considered an exotic with reference to SA. I mean, a tarantula from Mexico is equally as exotic as a Baboon spider from Zimbabwe - not so?

I think this is where you are confused.
A species that is indigenous can mean it occurs in South Africa, and anywhere else on the continent, and considering its the genera of baboon spiders that are protected, I suppose its the same...so no, they are not equally as exotic. Brachypelma(the genus) is not indigenous to South Africa, but Pterinochilus(the genus) is.
Maybe a bad example, but I consider elephants to be indigenous, yet they occur occross the border as well.
This applies to your example with Hysterocrates as well. They are indigenous to Cameroon, but not indigenous to South Africa.

scorpion wrote:

...there is NO legislation preventing the importation of exotic tarantulas...

Again, I think this is a confusing situation, because its not necessarily that its illegal to import tarantulas, its the fact that its illegal to import anything without a permit(tarantulas included)...and nature conservation will not issue a permit to import tarantulas.
For this reason all tarantulas in the pet trade have actually been imported illegaly.

Anyway, thats the way I see it.

RETRACTED

:blush: woops i didnt realise "moderators" were not allowed opinions contrary to the flow ...

Thanks for taking time out to pointlessly point out the pointlessness of the pointless statement. :laugh: now THAT you could term as juvenile

:side: Guess i shot the sherrif ... but gosh darnit i seemed to have missed the deputy!

As previously stated please stick to the topic at hand.

Rayman wrote:

scorpion wrote:

Hi,

for scientific purposes, I have had the opportunity to collect some wild specimens of Pterinochilus species (Golden Brown Baboon Spider)in the past. I have also had the opportunity to observe the SA species of Pterinochilus in captivity, including slings...

Now, my understanding is that all African "tarantulas" are referred to as Baboon Spiders. Anything from outside SA borders is considered an exotic with reference to SA. I mean, a tarantula from Mexico is equally as exotic as a Baboon spider from Zimbabwe - not so? It is another country and therefore exotic...

Anyway, my observations were the following:

The SA species of Pterinochilus is no where near as aggressive as OBT's
The colouration is also duller than that of OBT - including slings.

My conclusion is the following:

The original stock of OBT's which have resulted in all the stock you see in Pet Shops is stock from outside that of South Africa. So therefore in my opinion, these spiders should be considered "exotic"and because there is NO legislation preventing the importation of exotic tarantulas, in my opinion, OBT's should be legal...

collecting and selling the local Pterinochilus species, now that is illegal - but I would argue that OBT's are not local (SA).

I mean, if OBT's are illegal, then Hercules etc etc must also then be considered illegal to keep?

just some observations...

Ok, now that im awake, i read your argument again.
Firstly, like i said, i would love to know what species of Pterinochilus you found here in sa.
Secondly, a spider from mexico is much more exotic than one from zimbabwe. Different continents, temperatures, humidity, conditions, predators, the list goes on. There is a much better chance that a spider from zimbabwe could survive in the wild in sa than one from mexico.
Thirdly, you said obt's were more aggressive than the locals. As both myself and raven stated, that causes major problems if they were to escape and threaten local populations of our own baboon spiders.
Fourthly, there are laws against importing of spiders hence the need for permits to do it.
And lastly, yes, H.gigas are also african, but require higher humidity than found in most places of south africa and much warmer all year conditions where they are found, so chances are they will not survive in sa if they were to get out.
That should do it.

ok, this thread got a bit derailed.
so back onto topic, i would love to hear scorpions answer/comments to my questions/statements. Not trying to pick a fight, just replying to his original post, so would like to hear his feelings.
Thanx.

what exactly do you want me to comment on Rayman?

Twice you insinuated that I started this debate to satisfy my own financial interests - completely uncalled for and unsubstantiated. I asked you to retract the statments and you choose not to.

I started the thread to spark some good debate. For me the original topic raised has been dealt with, with fuzzy logic by the authorities (in my opinion).

The thread did not achieve what I was hoping for unfortunately (healthy debate), instead my credibility and intentions were questioned and the conversation went on another tangent.

So, if this is how my input is going to be treated, I just wont contribute anything.

Some background info though: I had the first reptile website in SA. I was the person who came up with the fisthank incubator system which I see today is used by many breeders. When I first got into the hobby, no one wanted to give out their breeding secrets - it took 4 years of attempts before I came up with the idea of the fishtank incubator which I used and had success with for decades (98 - 100% hatch rate). In fact, I think it could be used for incubating tarantula egg sacs - but I will get to that in another thread perhaps.

So my philosophy has always been to share what I know. My reptile website has free downloadable information on builiding incubators, breeding various species of reptiles etc.

I have written many caresheets and pdf format books on scorpions, tarantulas, leopard geckos, rat snake, milk snake and king snakes.

I still need to write on Veiled Chameleons and bearded dragons (the knowledge is in my head, just not on paper) and then I think I am done .

My point is I have been around a while and in this and other "creepy crawlie" hobbies since I can remember.

I am currently designing a website dedicated to tarantulas and another for scorpions. I already have one for reptiles.

My standards for selling my reptiles over the decades were so high, that staff working at various other shops selling reptiles would buy their personal stock from me, simply because they knew my standards and what they were getting was good stock.

anyway, that is a bit about me.

Ar Jay, thanks for your input - I hear you that it is a genus thing and not specific tarantula/baboon spider thing. That makes sense.