Arachnida Obscura

Arguably my most favorite of all arachnids; tossing up against Amblypygids. My Uropygid which I stowed on plane back from Sarawak to east Malaysia. Thelyphonus doriae borneoensis is my best guess yet. Somebody please throw a monkey in this wrench.


This is the cube aquarium enclosure I set up for "Solo." He digs digging so I gave him a couple of inches rather than acres. The top was DIY.

view from above, He made a couple of burrows but he made his hub right under that deli water dish. Too easy


I adore how they feel their way around around with their 1st pair of legs like micro metal detectors.

Some shots I tried not to shake...

and yet another...


This was the poster shot I was looking for but the glass was a bit dirty.

You can see how the chelicerae stack vertically as in ablypigids and theraphosids. The legs too are very spider like. A frozen frame in evolution

I agree -- my favorite part about these guys (as well as the amblypigids) is observing how their first pair of legs function like antennae. I've even witnessed a vinegaroon I once had "herding" prey towards its mouth with them.

As for species, I know nothing about Malaysian vinegaroons. All I know is that Mastigoproctus giganteus is the most common species in the US.

very cool.

Speaking of Amblypigids; these are Sarax sp. (sarawakensis?); a smaller specie of amblypigi that occurs in damp forest undergrowths of Borneo. Admittedly its usually the larger varieties that do little to seize my fascination but lately I'm beginning to find these to be absolute darlings. Here's one sized up against my index finger.

While I was back in Borneo during the holidays I brought back 6 individuals, including one large male and a female with eggs under her belly. Currently I have them all housed communally in this Betta box.

One of them is gorging itself on a little cockroach. Sexing them is apparently easy (Thanks Lisa). Males have elongated pedipalpi...

while the female has stubbier ones.

why is the vinegaroon looks so fat?power fed?

Awesome cavespiders! Makes me want to try breeding them; all I have is my lone female Tanzanian.

junshern222 wrote:

why is the vinegaroon looks so fat?power fed?

Most healthy vinegaroons look like that.

not critisizing at all just genuinely curious, is it typical for whip & tailess whip scorpion cages to be so wet? they almost seem flooded, is this the setup they do best in? i only had one for a short while before it died due to stress from shipping



John

No worries man, I appreciate the feedback. I couldn't find anything out there on the keeping of this particular species (Sarax sp.); so I'm just going based on trial and error, constant revision and a number of sensible assumptions in the absence of solid facts.

I was excavating an overgrown brick pile in a friend's house in Borneo where I found most of them and that environment was really moist and cool. So based on where I found them, I tried to replicate those wild conditions best I could since they appear to thrive in it.

The most common US species of Uropygid is distributed in the fairly dry southwest, so that may have been the idea that John was coming from.

Mr. Mordax wrote:

The most common US species of Uropygid is distributed in the fairly dry southwest, so that may have been the idea that John was coming from.

no, ive collected ambypligids in the wild in cozumel and knew they liked it humid, i just didnt realize they liked it swampy humid. its also very interesting that there are so many different species of uropygi out there in a diverse range of habitat, but they all look completely identical to me. i dont mean they all look similar like many scorpions or ambyplygi i mean they look IDENTICAL to me. lol ive yet to branch out in any mentionable way to these groups. i always spent my money on T's and scorpions and pedes, but im definitely considering tracking down some of these orders as they are pretty wicked.



john

pandinus wrote:

but they all look completely identical to me. i dont mean they all look similar like many scorpions or ambyplygi i mean they look IDENTICAL to me.

This is very true indeed, most journals on arachnid taxonomy differentiate the many species of a particular genus based on minute details such the shape and proportions of pines on different segments of the pedipalpi. The coloration of the majority of Uropygids across disparate regions remains fairly consistent. Its been a headache just trying to ID the species I currently have.

i am still jealous of the Sarax sp. (sarawakensis?) its beautiful

I used to keep mine that damp as well, I started off having it a bit dryer but it didn't seem happy, so i sort of drenched the enclosure and it ate better and i saw more of it

Yes Lisa, they love it dripping damp... but what still gets me is their size or lack thereof... No pinheads = dead babies.