Costa Rican Zebra Tarantula (Aphonopelma seemanni)

Costa Rican Zebra Tarantula Aphonopelma seemanni
Name	Costa Rican Zebra Tarantula
Name Lat.	Aphonopelma seemanni
Family	Tarantulas
Family lat.	Theraphosidae
Order	Spiders
Order lat.	Araneae
Origin	Central America
Habitat	Dry forest
Diet	Live insects
Humidity	70-80 %
Behavior	Nocturnal, semi-aggressive
Keeping	Individual
Care Level	Difficult
Housing	Humid terrarium
Breeding	Moderately difficult
Life Span	5-10 years
Protection	No
Metric Units
Size	7 cm
Temperature Day	25-27 °C
Temperature Night	20-23 °C
Housing Size	30 x 30 x 40 cm
US Units
Size	2.8"
Temperature Day	77-81 °F
Temperature Night	68-73 °F
Housing Size	10" x 10" x 15"

Distribution and habitat

The range of the nocturnal, ground-dwelling Guatemalan Striped Bird Spiders extends from Guatemala through Nicaragua to Costa Rica, where they live in dry forests and grassy steppes  primarily in burrows they dig themselves.

Maintenance

For 1 animal a terrarium with a minimum size of e.g. 30 x 30 x 40 cm can be recommended. The terrarium should be placed in a quiet place without sunlight.

You need a terrarium structured with cork tubes, roots and stones (hiding places, privacy screen), a substrate of sand-loam-peat mixture or terrarium humus about 10 cm deep, suitable for digging, a small, shallow drinking vessel and for decoration artificial or potted plants (e.g. Ficus pumila, Scindapsus aureus). The bulk of the substrate should always be kept slightly moist. Once a day, preferably in the evening, the inside of the terrarium should be finely sprayed with water (humidity), but a rain or mist system is better

Temp. day: 25-27 °C

Temp. night: 20-23 °C

Humidity: 70-80

The lighting duration should be 8-12 hrs. depending on the season. A conventional light source (fluorescent tube, incandescent bulb) is sufficient. Special lamps with high UV content are not necessary.

Diet

The food supply should consist of crickets, cockroaches, house crickets, maggots and grasshoppers as well as other arachnids. The prey animal is "injected" with the biting tools (chelicerae) with a digestive juice, which liquefies the protein components and the prey can thus be sucked out (extracorporeal digestion). Young animals can be offered food 1-2 times a week, adults only every 1-2 weeks. They should not be overfed under any circumstances, the basic rule being that the abdomen should be no more than 1½ times the size of the cephalothorax. Unaccepted food must be removed after 1-2 days. Refusal of food may indicate a natural phase of starvation or an impending molt. No food animals should be in the terrarium during molting, they could injure the spider.

A regular and varied diet promotes health and prevents deficiency symptoms.

Reproduction and breeding

The slightly smaller males can be recognized by their bulbs folded in towards the body. Females can be colored from light brown to black and they have white stripes on the legs

The female lays 100 to 400 eggs in a prepared cocoon a few weeks after mating. After 10-12 weeks, the 2-3 mm young hatch and leave the nest soon after. Suitable food for rearing is Drosophila, freshly hatched crickets and springtails

The life expectancy of females can be over 15 years.

Obligation to report

Make sure to inform yourself about any regulations on keeping or bans on keeping this animal in your state or home municipality (e.g. public order office). Your pet store will be happy to provide you with further information.

Important

They are temperamental and sensitive to disturbances. In defense, they hurl irritant hairs with their hind legs against the attacker (bombard). These cause skin irritation and may cause corneal damage in the eyes as well as asthma-like symptoms. Care should also be taken when cleaning the terrarium, as irritant hairs can be stirred up from the substrate (safety goggles). A bite is very painful, the venom is equivalent to that of a bee or wasp. Crushed or held legs can be thrown off at a predetermined breaking point and regenerate completely after 1-2 molts. They change color slightly with each molt

Good ventilation without drafts and equipment for measuring temperature and humidity are necessary. The lighting must correspond to the day-night rhythm appropriate for the species and must be placed in such a way that the animals cannot injure themselves. The terrarium should be locked in such a way that neither unauthorized persons can open it nor the animals can escape. Special attention must be paid to thorough hygiene and impurities must be removed regularly.

Further literature can be found in your pet store.

References

Text: petdata; Image: Franz Lowak

Source: ENGELMANN & LANGE (2011): Zootierhaltung - Tiere in menschlicher Obhut: Wirbellose, Harri Deutsch Verlag: KLAAS (2007): Vogelspinnen- Herkunft, Pflege, Arten, Verlag Eugen Ulmer