GC : Deon - Spaerobothria hoffmanni - 2 nd instar - 10/11/2013

COMMON NAME : CENTRAL AMERICAN HORNED TARANTULA

HABITAT : Coastal mountains of Costa Rico.

Here we go guys, these little buggers are hard to photograph, because they are very active and quite fast. Starting with the photo for size, I put it in a box on a block-lined paper, it ran off the paper and out of the box in the corner with the tiniest of holes. Eventually I took a photo, although it's not sitting quite square.

The smallest blocks are exactly 2 mm and they combine into blocks of exactly 10 mm or 1 cm. Although the sling has it's front legs slightly drawn, we will start this first size as 8 mm (1 cm argumentative). I cannot ascertain the correct birth or EWL date, so will estimate this sling to be 2 nd instar for the purpose of this growth chart.

The slings are kept on slightly damp peat and housed in a plastic tub in a closed up glass front cupboard, with regulated temperature of 26 degrees Celsius. They will be fed on pinhead lobster roaches as a start.

For the purpose of accurate record keeping, we will estimate the molt date to 2 nd instar to be the 25 th of October 2013. The growth chart is started on 10/11/2013 and they were fed one pinhead roach each on 9/11/2013, which they didn't take immediately, but fed on them during the night.

Molt : 8/12/2013. No visible growth. Preferred not to disturb in tiny hollow with this molt. Will check with next molt. Feeding regularly, scavenging on half roach works better than live feeders.

Hi Deon,

any update on these tiny ones?

Hi Six,yes they both molted this past weekend. Taking photo's this afternoon and will be doing an update. One is male and one is female, so I will also do a comparison.

The molt dates for the 2 S.hoffmanni are split into two to show the comparative growth between the two slings.
S.hoffmanni #1 : 17/12/2013 , 17/01/2014 , 18/02/2014.
S.hoffmanni #2 : 08/12/2013 , 09/01/2014 , 15/02/2014.

Attached are microscope photo's of the spermatica from the molt skins.

S.hoffmanni #1 - male
S.hoffmanni #2 - female.

Although this is very early a pattern may be starting to emerge, time will tell if the assumption is correct. The male #1 has molted exactly a month apart, while the female #2 first molted a month apart and now slightly longer interval. We will see whether this interval will increase more than the male's intervals in future.

Growth after the first molts were negligibly small , but the second molt produced more growth, the female (#2) now reaching 2 cm, while #1 (male) is about 2 mm smaller. Photo attached is of #2 (female).