No. But I am extra cautious with the Selenocosmia crassipes, as I have two dogs & the venom on these has been known to kill an Australian Shepherd in as little as 20 minutes. And one of my dogs is a Dachshund, so a lot smaller & more vulnerable. The venom is not nice on humans, but no medical treatment is needed.
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[quote=“Bratti, post:50, topic:81840”] Wait! What?
Barking as in canine?
Can you actually hear them bark? [/quote]
They make a hissing sound & if feeling very threatened, this can be heard well over 10 feet away.
We don’t worry about never seeing a T. In general you know if it’s eating or not. And we try to keep them in as natural environment as possible. And yes I have had T’s die, if food is not eaten for months, you do tend to go looking for them. But T’s can go for months & not eat, especially if they are pre molt.
T’s like snakes etc. Molt to grow. The following is a few molts from a couple of weeks last summer. Warm weather produces more molts.
It is really not nice when one dies. Even if it is a mature male & natural & expected. You always wonder if you could have done something different for them. And some you become really attached to. Three of mine have names.
Felicity, or Flick for short. She is a goliath Birdeater & around 9 inches. She is a real kitten, but hisses & loves to flick hair. Hence her name.
Hohokam. Who is an Arizona Blonde & named after the ancient people who irrigated the Sonoran Desert. I like to educate myself about my T’s natural environment & she is lovely. She has real attitude & moves lots of substrate.
And lucky. An Indian T. In the wild these T’s existed in3 tea plantations only & then India allowed one of them to be developed into a holiday resort. So they just became even more rare. She is what we call an old world & old worlds are not seen as beginners T’s. They are fast, more defensive & their venom, in general, is worse. Lucky needs to be several small crickets, as big ones stress her & she hides. So much for the reputation of old worlds.
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That’s incredible. I had no idea whatsoever that a spider could even make noise.
Ok. I get just like any pet, you get to know their habits and personalities. This is much like snakes; that moulting thing. Gotcha! We’ll explained.
WOW! Do you ever at first confuse the sheds for the actually spider? Those sheds are a bit creepy but I’m not used to seeing such things whereas you are. Even that big one is a shed?
Boy, you could really pull off some cool pranks!
Thank you.
you and me both Minx
The molts in general are dry & curled up when found. by flattening them out we get to measure leg length which like a TV is done diagonally. So front left to rear right. And the molt is the best way of sexing a tarantula. You look for a slit on the underside between it’s book lungs. Spiders do not have conventional lungs, instead they have something, which inside looks somewhat similar to a book.
The children of some friends have loved being given a tarantula molt.
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That’s amazing. You know, I’ve never in my life even considered the thought of needing to identify the sex of a tarantula but this way is truly brilliant. That molt really does look cool and I bet kids are tickled pink getting one. What a cool thing to show your friends.
Well I’ve never learned so much about spiders as I have in this thread. Thank you for showing such unique creatures and educated us some.
Very good! 
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I lost one dog to a spider bite, we never saw the spider but we presume it was a Redback
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no redbacks there’s something else - no their entire backs are not red - in fact it is a red dot varying in size and you can spend days looking for it! - only really dangerous for old persons and babies and bruces dog!
I’m so sorry for your loss.
That must have been horrible. 
Do they not decompose, Gee? The molts that is, not the children!
Are all your spider friends in special tanks or do any roam freely?
That must have been horrible. Poor dog, poor you.
The molts are dry & brittle. We normally hand them on in cheap food containers from poundland with kitchen roll under & above them. Normally a large deli tub about 4 inches in diameter will take a molt. But with some of the bigger T’s a sandwich tub is needed.
And the molts make great Halloween decorations. As do a few giant hissing cockroaches in your hand as you open the door.
Depending upon species, a male lives a few years. 2 to 5 years, depending upon species. While a female lives up to 25 years depending upon species. So there is a difference in value between males & females & of course you want to get the sex correct for breeding.
@Gee, in the anchariid world do the males fight over the females, once mated do you keep the sexes apart, lest the female kills her partner.
Is this short lifespan due to females eating them or do they naturally just have a shorter lifespan genetically?
All tarantulas, other than a very very few species. About 3 or 4. Will prey on each other. Even with species that can be kept communally, you need to over feed, to try & prevent cannibalism.
And if the males survives mating, which 2 of mine have not over the past year. Then yes, you remove them.
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Thank you, fascinating hobby.
Once a male has matured his only drive in life is mating. They in general stop eating, they don’t drink, they just want to mate. And males & females from the same egg sack reach maturity at different molts. So the males mature first, mate & die. Then the females from the same egg sack mature.
I have no idea if it’s natures way of stopping the T’s from the same egg sack from inter breeding, but the consequence is that egg sack siblings cannot mate & with most males either being killed during mating or dying just after. Few males in the wild produce more than one egg sack. So the species keeps it’s genetic base broad.
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Nature is truly fascinating.
Thank you. 
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Just found this in my Home…It’s quite bright Green, it did not bite but was scared, as I know they are of humans, can’t say I blame them either… 
caught these quick shots the other day out of my Kitchen Window.
Green Woodpecker
…
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