Because bugs aren't just for breakfast anymore...

Enjoy pictures of some beautiful tarantulas.

A nice male Grammostola iheringi, Entre Rios tarantula.

Another male, this time a Grammostola alticeps, Brazilian graysmoke.

This is a mature female Theraphosa blondi, the Goliath Birdeater. She currently measures about eleven inches and is growing fast. She has been mated repeatedly with a male and as you can see in the photo, she appears gravid.

A nice female Phormictopus cancerides, Haitian brown. Like Usambaras with Acanthoscurria geniculata appetites!

This is a female Poecilitheria regalis. The large white object is an egg sac. To give you an idea of the size of the egg sac, the female is about 8 or so inches long.

A female Brachypelma boehmei, Mexican beauty.

A female Brachypelma smithi, Orange Knee a.k.a. 'pet rock'. Spiderlings available.

This is a Ceratogyrus brachycephalus. The name refers to the hornlike growth. Spiderlings available.

A female Cyclosternum fasciatum. These little bumble bees can be shy and quick, but always gentle. If you have adult pairs available, let us know.

A mature female Chromatopelma cyanopubescens, the green bottle blue. Breeding soon to be in progress.

This is an immature male Brachypelma emilia. Shy, sweet, and drop dead gorgeous. He has a harem waiting.

A large female Brachypelma klaasi, the Mexican pink. We are waiting on her mate to mature.

A female Thrixopelma pruriens. We are waiting on a large group to mature.

'Say hello to our little friend'. This is a Pterinochilus murinus. She is quite satisfied with herself as she has just finished eating an adult Haplopelma minax. Don't ask why!

This is a mature male Aphonopelma paloma, a native of Arizona. That is not a typo. This male had a leg span of all of one inch!

This is another Arizona species, now confirmed as Aphonopelma behlei. We are now collecting these from several localities to establish a breeding group.

These are our native Arizona Desert Blondes, Aphonopelma chalcodes. We never tire of capturing these gentle beauties, and one can never have too many. This specimen has molted fairly recently into a sunset blush. This is quite appropriate as we find many of our chalcodes at sunset by spying their forelegs peeking out of their burrow. Didn't realize that they were this pretty before, did you? Aren't you glad that you remembered?

This, in our opinion, stunningly gorgeous spider is an unidentified Aphonopelma species from Arizona. There is a slight possibility that it is an A. chalcodes variant, but we doubt that. Compare to the photo of A. chalcodes above noticing the abundance of browns and blacks, including black chelicerae whereas A. chalcodes are tan and above all, enough gorgeous red tones to give an A. moderatum a complex. A. chalcodes is not a red head like this girl, they are Tucson Blondes. While we were at the ATS meeting in Carlsbad, this female laid a huge egg sac which has hatched successfully. This is our favorite spider on the planet. While some believe this tarantula to be a variant of A. chalcodes, we find it odd that all of these have blocked their burrows in captivity by October while none of the known, typical A. chalcodes at our location have.

A Carlsbad, New Mexico Aphonopelma species, which we tentatively call the Carlsbad Green.

Here is a picture of one of our incubators, complete with a dime sized egg sac. This one is identical in construction to the specifications in the ATS publication A Mechanical Mom for Tarantulas. It would seem that the same setup minus the tumbler would be a good arrangement for managing the environment of certain baby scorpions and other inverts as well.

Lasiodora parahybana extracting itself from a molt.

This is the same L. parahybana in the post molt resting phase. Note that chelicerae (fangs) are pink, indicating that they are not yet sclerotized (hardened). With adult tarantulas, feeding should not be resumed until the chelicerae regain normal coloration. With spiderlings, this can occur as early as the same day.