A Grand Day Out

So, we decided to go to the British Tarantula Society's Annual Exhibition a couple of weekends ago (what else does one do of a Sunday...?) and what an experience it turned out to be. We were anticipating a small school hall with a few different exhibiters. Instead we found THIS:


Plus another smaller hall packed to the gunnels with all manner of thing both creepy and crawly. I had set out on a mission to buy nothing more than another giant African land snail (rest in peace Snaily - at least 10 years old!) and some more hissing cockroaches. I was then presented with all manner of amazing mantises:


Tempting spiders:


And lots of other awesome critters:


I was accompanied by Mrs Jim and some other not-so spider-loving friends who I think enjoyed themselves, especially considering at least one of them has a pathological dislike of arachnids. The pub lunch afterwards probably helped. It was good fun seeing who else was there too: from respectable middle-aged people, to very friendly enthusiasts, to spider-geeks and also Birmingham's entire goth and mullet-wearing population. It was unusual to feel like one of the most normal people in a room for a change.

The main mission for the day for Mrs Jim was to acquire a little Avicularia versicolor, a stunning arboreal tarantula. Unsurprisingly, given the immense selection there, we easily found our spider and named her Darcy. You can't see her in the photo because she's tiny but she is incredibly beautiful. As a juvenile they have a metallic dark blue colouring, which you can make out as she sits on my hand:



But once they are full grown they turn into an even more colourful creature, with a bright green carapace and pink abdomen, both with a metallic sheen. Being arboreal, they are much better climbers than the ground-dwelling species that are most popular as pets. They are also a little more tricky to keep, but I reckon that with our experience little Darcy will do just fine. In fact, she has already successfully moulted once since we've had her which is a good sign. Juveniles moult on a much more regular basis than adults as they are growing rapidly, and take a lot less time to harden after each moult. 48 hours after moulting, Darcy had already eaten a cricket that was nearly as big as she is. Arboreal tarantulas are also a lot more fleet-footed than their ground-dwelling counterparts, and we've already noticed this when we had her out for her photo shoot, the only thing that slowed her down were my hairy arms!

We'll definitely be heading to the BTS annual exhibition 2012, and can recommend it for spider-fans and unusual haircut lovers alike.

New arrivals - photo shoot

It seemed only fitting to properly unveil the new arrivals with some beautiful photographs of a sort that I am not capable of taking. Above is a shot of one of the new Giant African Millipedes, Archispirostreptus gigas. Many thanks to 9 Little Bees for his stunning work I hope you all enjoy the pictures.



Above you can see one of the large male Madagascan Hissing Cockroach, Gromphadorhina portentosa. You can tell this one is a male from the two lumps on the top of his head that he uses to assert his dominance over other males. As the name suggests, they can hiss by forcing air through their spiracles and males like this one tend to hiss more than females.



Giant African Land Snails can be one of three different species which are difficult to differentiate between so "GAL" is the normal catch-all term. This one is a venerable old lady (although actually, snails are hermaphrodites so its both really) who is about 12 inches or so in length when she's fully extended out of her shell.



Finally, we have a personal favourite of mine the Emperor Scorpion, Pandinus imperator. As long as you know what you're doing, they are perfectly happy being handled and are in fact incredibly gentle as long as you're not mistaken for anything edible. As an arachnid, they have eight legs and two 'arms' which are this species' main weapons - its claws. The size of the claws tell you that the sting is not particularly potent, and in fact they rarely use it.

With all the new additions, I've been spending quite a bit of time sorting out all of the critters and making sure they've settled in OK. Once its looking a bit more settled in the bug house there will be plenty more of these stunning photos and lots more all about these brilliant beasties.