Description: P. rufonigrum has an average carapace length of 40 mm, so it is quite a large spider. Spiderlings are bluish with metallic tints. The blue becomes stronger with each moult and a black stripe begins to appear along the centre of the opisthosoma, with three black stripes that start in the abdomen laterals and end, horizontally, near the black central stripe. Leaving the juvenile stage, the bluish shade is lost, and the black stripes become more intense while the areas of the abdomen between the stripes develop reddish tints. Sub-adult individuals lose the black stripe with both opisthosoma and prosoma hairs developing a black colour, although with still noticeable reddish shades, mainly towards the base of abdomen. When adult, P. rufonigrum becomes completely black. This occurs both in males and females.

Scientific name: Pachistopelma rufonigrum Pocock

Common name: ?

Origin: Serra de Itabaiana, Areia Banca, State of Sergipe, Brazil. The Serra de Itabaiana is situated between the coast of Sergipe and the Bahia “caatinga”, in the Atlantic Forest. Caatinga is a xeric shrubland and thorn forest, which consists primarily of small, thorny trees that shed their leaves seasonally. Cacti, thick-stemmed plants, thorny brush, and arid-adapted grasses make up the ground layer. Many annual plants grow, flower, and die during the brief rainy season (see en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caatinga ). Where P. rufonigrum is found is an area of white sand with vegetation was consisting mainly of Cactaceae, Velloziaceae and Bromeliaceae. In this locality P. rufonigrum is found only on two types of plant – bromeliads of the genera Aechmea and Hohenbergia, with only one spider per plant. The spiders have a higher humidity in the bromeliads than in the surrounding areas, which helps then survive the dry periods.

Diet: Insects

Growth: Not much is known, as this species is only in the hobby in Brazil.

Temper:

Venom:

References:
Dias, S.C., (2004). Color pattern changes in Pachistopelma rufonigrum Pocock (Araneae, Theraphosidae). Revista Brasiliera de Zoologia. 21(1): 153-154.
Dias, S.C. & Brescovit, A.D., (2003). Notes on the behaviour of Pachistopelma rifonigrum Pocock (Araneae, Theraphosidae, Aviculariinae). Revista Brasiliera de Zoologia, 20(1): 13-17.
Dias, S.C., Brescovit, A.D., Santos, L.T. & Couto, E.C.G., (2000). Aranhas en bromélias de duas restingas do Estado de Sergipe, Brasil. Biologia Geral e Experimental, São Cristóvão, 1(1): 22-24.
Gumpelmayer, A., (1993). Pachistopelma rufonigrum. Arachnida-Post 1(3): 3-5.
Pocock, R.I. (1901). Some new and old genera of South American Avicularidae. Ann. Mag. nat. Hist. (7) 8: 540-555.

Please could you add a heading HABITAT to the entries. I think it is very important that we know what the environment is in which the spiders live, so that when we attempt breeding, or just try to make them happy, we have some idea. Not everyone has access to the few scientific papers that get published, and I find that most fora do not dwell too heavily on the details, unfortunately. This tarantula has a very specific habitat requirement which I think makes it important, if we ever get one, to be able to mimic or approximate its environment. If this Tarantula Encyclopedia is going to be different and better than all the other listings and web sites, then it should contain a little more than the usual stuff.

I have collected a lot of the available books, and many papers, but the collective knowledge on all the species is more than what is published and actually accessible to the enthusiast.

The word encyclopedia, which to us usually means a large set of books, descends from a phrase that involved coming to grips with the contents of such books. The Greek phrase is enkuklios paideia, made up of enkuklios, "cyclical, periodic, ordinary," and paideia, "education," and meaning "general education." Copyists of Latin manuscripts took this phrase to be a single Greek word, enkuklopaedia, with the same meaning, and this spurious Greek word became the New Latin word encyclopaedia, coming into English with the sense "general course of instruction," first recorded in 1531. In New Latin the word was chosen as the title of a reference work covering all knowledge. The first such use in English is recorded in 1644.

It usually implies a comprehensive reference work containing articles on a wide range of subjects or, in this instance, on numerous aspects of a particular field. Let us rather have space for a number of different fields, so that if the information is not available it wont appear, but if it is, the lack of a heading to allow it wont restrict the information.

Also, when referring to the scientific names, the first name, the generic name, has its initial letter capitalised. However, the second name, or specific epithet, is not capitalised. Also, in the rapidly changing field of theraposid taxonomy, it is also normal practice to put the author of the name, so that you can refer to the original description by that author and understand what was being described - ie Pachistopelm rufonigrum Pocock.

I hope this epistle is not taken as being overtly critical, but her we have a chance to start out with something that does not yet exist, to my knowledge, on the web - a proper Tarantula Encyclopedia. If we get it right from the beginning, then we will have something that is of great help to all, especially the enthusiast - an informative summary of all that is known about a species and how we can identify it, look after it and hopefully breed it. My 200 cents...