#mintsbugs

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tfw you almost put headphones on and then remember theres a spider in your hair

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i kept meaning to take better pictures of my G. pulchra slings (if they can still be considered slings at this size!) so here they are

the first photo is from back in September when i got them! so it’s been almost exactly 6 months and they’ve grown and grown. can’t believe they were sooooo tiny ;O;

i don’t know if i would pay as much as i see slings going for now, but the glossy black is beautiful, i have to admit. plus, who doesn’t love a classic big, black, furry spider?

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do not try this at home

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and a new acquisition! i heard that the provider for my area, Segrest Farms, was going out of business, but maybe they changed locations or they’ve just stopped supplying tarantulas?? i don’t know, but either way i was able to get a great deal on a hard to find species, though it was terrible to come with such bad news D:

this is my new baby, and her species is either Bumba cabocla or Maraca cabocla -- i’m not sure which is the correct genus name (Bumba, i think?)

either way, she’s totally adorable and so different looking from any other species i own! i saw a picture of an adult some months ago and was like “WHAT THE HELL IS THAT IT’S BEAUTIFUL BUT PROBABLY WILL BITE THE SHIT OUT OF YOU”

nope! super docile. this little lady is more mellow than my G. pulchra slings, who are now over twice her size (i’ll get some photos up of them too!). i love the dainty legs and bright red carapace of this species. definitely been on my wishlist for a while, and i was lucky the store where i get my crickets is just a general pet shop -- i don’t think they have many if any other die-hard tarantula people, so i admired this sling for weeks before my tax return finally came!

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the ones not used to handling will even crawl toward your hand and turn the fuck around as soon as one spide paw lands on it “OH GROSS I TOUCHED IT, SHIT IT WAS ALL FLESHY AND WEIRD EEEEWWWW”

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aww someone reblogged my video of pollita grooming from a molt or so ago? she’s bigger now but no less of a fussbucket and i love how most spiders will have a bath soon after you’re done handling them, they’re like little cats with extra legs

“ew ew a human touched me, oh gross i smell like it, it pet my butt, nasty, i gotta get rid of that right now i have to bathe AGGRESSIVELY and PASSIONATELY”

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pollita is a damn child, i gave her a subadult cricket, not even a full grown cricket and she got scared and hid from it. she will only eat tiny crickets and then eats like 4 of them at a time to get enough and the new lady is probably about 1/6 pollita’s size and tackling crickets the same size

in summary don’t be scared of all the tarantulas, just maybe the arboreal ones because my terrestrials are giant fucking pissbabies who are afraid of everything

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on an unrelated note, i had a huntsman spider i was keeping but i lost her while trying to handle her :< i was using the soft paintbrush i have for guiding my Ts where i want them to see if i could get her calm enough to know touching doesn’t necessarily mean danger

what i found REALLY interesting though was that she’d hold still when i got the brush near her pedipalps and she’d even reach out to touch it and figure out what it was but she scurried away when i so much as poked her toe with it

meanwhile as many people know you can brush your Ts pretty much anywhere you want and they don’t really seem to mind (as in it doesn’t spook them and make them want to run), but they definitely prefer being touched on the legs/butt area.

tarantulas have poor eyesight and rely on vibration to know where things are, so you can’t really sneak up behind one, but huntsmen are sight-oriented and you can tell because they definitely like things better where they can easily see them! and gosh it was so cute watching her touch along the bristles with her palps to learn what it was GODDAMN SPIDERS ARE CUTE

im not worried about her; she’s probably better off being free in the house anyway so she can be found by a male. she took down a large cricket bigger than she was so she definitely isn’t hurting as far as food goes lmao

tldr huntsmen do not wanna walk on you like Ts do but both are fun to play with and theyre special and unique and i continue to not understand why people dont at least appreciate them from a distance