Ok ok, i completely owe this species an apology for ever underestimating its awesomeness. the story goes that i ended up buying a p. regalis sling from a guy a few hours away from here. as a freebie he offered me a 2.5" H. gigas sling. Now i like african species just as much as the next guy, but they arent something i just go buck wild over, so i said sure i would love to take him off your hands. I had never had any experience with this species, so i did a little bit of reading, grows fast, relatively large, high humidity, loves to burrow. at this point my opinion was, oh sounds like im not going to see this guy very often but still pretty cool. ive had the guy about 2 months now and it has become one of my favorite spiders! it wasted no time in creating a huge elaborate multi chambered burrow, yet still every night sits at the entrance if shy, but more often than not travels all the way across the cage to the other side of the tank, and then bolts back to his hole whenever threatened. it molted quickly and is now about 3-3.5" and gets more active every day. a downside of this is that its becoming a bit of a challenge keeping his wait up (no roaches, just crickets, but trying to find some discoids locally) hes not thin, but i like my speed growers to always be a little plump just in case. Then the other night i was doing a search and read about instances of this species being aquatic, so i upgrade it to a larger enclosure with a very large deep water dish with a stone in it, and sure enough the first act upon entering the cage was to dive down to the bottom of the water!! i never had anything against this species, but i never thought for a second that this spider that is described as reclusive and drab colored would quickly become one of my favorite spiders! its so active, and so completely different than any other species ive ever had. on top of that, the spider is completely docile, which having dealt with other "baboons" before blew me away. ive never dealt with it with my hands before, you know just because that would be bad if something went awry, but it has never thrown up a threat, made a lightinig mad dash, and just sort of hunkers down when nudged in an attempt to herd. i feel like if i needed to, i would have no problems handling this species with my bare hand, something i cant say of any other african T ive ever had. I'm not usually one to gush like this, but i was just so astounded by this little freebie, and want to encourage others to give this species a try who havent. it may not be the most colorful T out there, but give it a short amount of time and it will steal your heart over in an instant. i have never been so pleasently suprised by a spider before.
John
