#tliltocatl

[herpsandbirds]

Mexican Red-rump Tarantula (Tliltocatl vagans), family Theraphosidae, Oaxaca, Mexico

photograph by gjpinat

[mateysandmonsters]

Tliltocatl kahlenbergi

[snototter]

A Mexican Red Rump tarantula (Tliltocatl vagans) in Central America

by didyeah.

[simon-newman]

IT’S HAPPENING!

Forgive me the dead plant I left inside (it died/dried up when I was on vacation/banished from home for over a month at the end of last year due to renovations).

What matters is that the Tliltocatl vagans female has dropped an egg sac!

FINALLY!

Now. To provide a bit more detail on this:

I’ve bought a male in summer 2022 and he matured around the end of August with the female molting about a month earlier (hard to tell she spends a lot of time underground).

I’ve attempted to pair them at the end of September and failed (the female retreated and remained unresponsive and I didn’t allow the male to wander into her burrow as he wasn’t drumming either).

A week later I attempted to pair them again and this time it all went perfectly with the male surviving.

From there I fed the female generously until she closed her burrow and disappeared later in October.

Unfortunately the male also died around that time for unknown reasons (I wasn’t around due to vacation time and by the time I returned he was already dead).

I waited patiently - regaining access to my place for good in late November I started to water her enclosure every two to three weeks depending on the state of the substrate - doing so carefully not to disturb her and not to collapse the burrow.

To my surprise the female emerged a bit over a week ago - around 10th of May. No egg sac at that time.

While I was kinda disappointed I noticed she was seriously FAT and she refused food when offered. I took the chance and watered her enclosure again - generously this time, soaking nearly half of the substrate on one side of the enclosure.

She remained outside until Saturday - at that time she did some excavating, webbed up the entrances the the hide and disappeared again.

Lo and behold! This morning I’ve found her as you can see in this photo.

Please note the absurdly deflated abdomen.

I’ve watered again today - causing her to retreat back to the hide.

Now we need to wait 30 days and hope she’ll take a good care of that sac.

[grammo-stole-a-my-heart]

2019-12-1

-escape attempt-

[soundsofstars]

Tliltocatl vagans, formerly Brachypelma vagans

instagram - aurachnid

[morbidsmenagerie]

The brachypelma genus got a revision! As a result, about half the members of this genus (including the previously known as b. vagans and b. albo, two species I own) have now been moved to a new genus; tliltocatl. I will be going back over my posts and revising them to include the corrected genus.

[herpsandbirds]

Mexican Red-rump Tarantula (Tliltocatl vagans), family Theraphosidae, found in far southern Mexico and Belize

photograph by Thomas Shahan