Avicularia geroldi

Avicularia geroldi looks quite similar to Avicularia metallica. I bought this spiderling when it was around its 2nd molt. It grew quite rapidly and fed well until one morning I found it dead in its container. It died suddenly and with no appearent reason. Meanwhile I heared that spiderlings of Avicularia are very sensitive to too much moisture. Another reason for the death of this animal could have been that I used normal potting ground in the container. This may very well have contained some kind of insecticide. Since geroldi is a tree dwelling species it might be that it did not come into direct contact with the soil very frequently and therefore was poisoned slowly or even second hand through the food (flies crawl all over the container and accumulate the chemicals). Therefore my urgent recommendation: DON'T use commercial potting mixture in the terrarium!

Avicularia metallica

Currently I have 9 Avicularia metallica, all of them are either spiderlings (3rd molt) or juveniles (10th molt). As with many tarantulas, the appearance of the animal changes quite dramatically during its development. Very young metallica spiderlings have light brown legs with dark ends and a copper marking on the abdomen (top picture). Around the 8th molt the color of the legs becomes much darker and pink "shoes" appear (middle and bottom picture). The adult spider will be of blueish-black color and have a blue metallic shine, hence the scientific name of the species.

Just one molt later the general color of the body has changed to a dark blueis-black hue with the tips of the legs turning light pink. These four pictures show the evolution of the typical metallica color. During subsequent molts the color will darken even further with the copper red markings on the back disappearing and a metallic blueish sheen appearing. Of course I will post these pictures here as I take them.

Avicularia minatrix

At the moment I'm keeping 2 adult female Avicularia minatrix and one subadult male. The animals are very docile, never tried to bite me or threatened to bite. Just the male is a little jumpy. These two pictures are from the same spider under different lighting conditions. As with many tarantulas, under the right lighting the carapax and the legs show a metallic shine which is difficult to capture on a photograph.

Avicularia purpurea

I have one spiderling of this species which shows the characteristic gray and dark blue markings on its abdomen. The shape of the markings is quite similar to that of Avicularia metallica. As an adult the color of the animal will be almost black with a purple shine. This young spiderling (1 cm body length) is still a blue-gray color with nearly black and white markings on its back.

Avicularia versicolor

I have currently 6 Avicularia versicolor in my stock. Two of them are subadult spiders and 4 are still spiderlings. The top picture shows a young spiderling (4th molt), which has a fantastic iridescent blue color. Later this color changes to a more greenish turqoise tone and the animal develops a dense rusty brown coat of hairs. Beautiful spider of impressive size.

The second picture shows a juvenile versicolor from underneath. Very clearly cou can see the four lungs as white spots on the abdomen of the animal. Also, the fangs can be seen. They are the dark brown, curved, somewhat shiny things left of the orange spot (which is the opening of the stomach). At the ends of the legs the spider has sticky pads (extremely fine hairs in huge numbers) which allow the animal to climb vertical surfaces and hang upside down on a glass surface. I have seen this particular spider jump from its nest in a corner of the terrarium about 25 cm, catch a fly that was sitting on one side of the terrarium and then land safely on a vertical glass side.
 

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