Brachypelma auratum called Tiffany

Warning: My dream is still a big aquarium with cichlids from the Malawi lake and it will probably the next thing I buy as soon as I have space (and money) for it.

For now Tiffany is my new pet. I admit that I could not imagine to live with a bird spider in one apartment but with time and some fascination this changed. The genus Brachypelma is a family of medium sized bird spiders living in Mexico. The most familiar species is Brachypelma smithi which actually looks very similar to Brachypelma auratum. However, the latter one is darker and has red knees while smithies have yellow to orange colors. Both species are very peaceful. Nevertheless they have quite huge poison fangs just like and spider. A bite is comparable to the sting of a wasp but due to the large fangs I assume it is more painful. Biting is only the very last resort for these spiders. If they feel provoked they can strip hairs from her abdomen which feels like a nettle. Anyway, the most common reaction to trouble of any kind is escape.

My spider, called Tiffany, was born in April 2008 as offspring in Germany and I bought her on July 13, 2009. One week later I received her in a small tube. She is about 2.5cm in length (body only). Two weeks later, on July 28, she shed (good timing) and another week later she took her first grass hopper. Although I had some problems with the humidity of the terrarium and all the stress due to shipment and skinning she seems to be very fine. Some pictures will follow when my camera is working again.

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Pheidole pallidula workers with brood

Only a few people get the idea to keep ants in their living rooms as pets. However, I'm one of these persons. Despite the fact that you should take care for a good protection against breakout these are really fascinating animals with an interesting social behavior. I'm quite fascinated by the category Camponotus. However, the domestic Camponotus species in Germany require a hibernation which is difficult without a big fridge. Therefore I decided to keep a a species from south Europe which can be found mediterranean regions: Pheidole pallidula. I got a single queen in July 2008. I first observed them at a campsite in Italy and was fascinated by the different castes of this species. Besides gyne, drone and workers there are also soldiers which make up to 20% of the colony.

The Formicarium is a simple glass box of about 30x20x20cm in size. The nest is made of Ytong and colored by a compound of clay. I made the lodes with a screwdriver and spliced it into the Formicarium. I didn't fill it with sand to prevent the glass from pollution. Furthermore my experience with previous colonies shows that the ants will use any possibility to The arena is quipped with watering hole and food place. To keep track of the environment conditions I'm using an analog thermometer and hygrometer.

The colony was founded in late July 2008 by a single queen which came along with some brood. The first workers followed only a few days later. The colony is fed with grasshoppers only since they do not take any kind of sweets like honey or sugared water. The only vegetarian food I successfully fed was pollen but only in very small quantities. The species is clearly carnivore. Some others claim that these small ants are very active, running around and trying to break out I my colony seems to be quite lazy.

During December and January the colony hibernated. The queen stopped breeding and almost no activity outside the nest could be observed. At the end of January I increased the temperature slowly with a lamp. The queen started to breed again and until beginning of March the colony increased in size to about 80 individuals. Meanwhile the colony has a couple of soldiers which are strong enough to dissect a grasshopper within less than a day.

After hibernation the queen started to breed very rapidly. The colony has grown to more than 200 individuals and took one grass hopper per day. The current formicarium proofed to be untight in the region of the cover. I tried to prevent break outs by using dish liquids after fluid PTFE (a lubricant) had failed. Since this did not help I bought a new formicarium designed for these small ants. It took only two days for the colony to change with breed an queen. Unfortunately the queen was killed two days later by her workers. I found her divided into to pieces in the nest. The workers seemed to "care" for both parts. I don't know exactly what happened. The queen seemed to be fine the evening before. A possible explanation is the glue I used to fix the Ytong in the basin. Although the glue was hardened before I offered the formicarium to the colony it may be possible that the exhalation of the glue interfered in some way with the pheromones of the queen. Perhaps the queen was mistakenly identified as intruder and attacked by some workers.

Since Pheidole pallidula is a monogyne species the colony is damned without queen. Although the chances were very bad I tried to adopt a new queen. The new queen was also attacked but I was able to save her. Currently I'm trying to bring up a new colony with this queen which seems to be much harder than last year. I'm out of luck... :(

Have a look at the gallery of this colony with some pictures in their first formicarium. The colony size varied between a few dozen and about 100 workers when the pictures were taken.