I still have no idea where they came from, but guys, I’ve suddenly become an owner
of a new colony of some critically endangered beasts that have literally appeared out of
nowhere!
I know right?!
Crazy!
Let me explain!
So last year I built a naturalistic terrarium which featured tropical plants, an organic
wall, and the coolest feature, this tree hollow which was to become the ultimate lair for
a new, cool animal I introduced to the channel, this gorgeous sapphire tarantula!
Now arachnophobes, please stay with me because this is where it gets incredible!
She crawled into the hollow as planned, but little did I know she would not be eating
nor leaving this hollow for the next two months.
She completely sealed herself in with silk, and one day out of nowhere, I saw this!
She had laid an egg sac!
But how could this be possible?
I hadn’t mated her with another male.
I asked the pet store owner I bought her from and he also said she hadn’t previously mated.
So, some of you arachnid experts told me it was a phantom egg, just a sac of unfertilized
eggs that I could remove after 28 days if she didn’t end up eating them herself.
But, guys, a month after this egg sac was laid, I peeked into the hallow, and couldn’t
believe my eyes!
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How could this be possible?
Tonnes of baby sapphire tarantula spiderlings had hatched from the egg sac, and were now
cuddling up next to one another with mom, within their silk-lined tree hollow!
Oh boy!
So many questions right?
Well, I’ll explain everything, but guys, keep on watching until the end because I’ll
be needing your help today with this colony, so get your voting fingers ready as you all
will be involved at helping me save this critically endangered species.
OK, so there were several reasons this birth event was pretty amazing!
First, this was a very special species.
So get this, sapphire tarantulas are unique because they apparently can be housed communally
in a colony!
Arachnophobes, hang on!
Don’t panic!
Communal spiders or tarantulas are rather rare in the spider world, as most species
would happily attempt to eat each other at a single opportunity, so rest assured unless
you live in the small town of Gooty in India, where these tarantulas are from, you won’t
have to worry about a colony of these arachnids invading your space.
Which brings me to the next crazy thing, that makes the birth of these spiders super important,
and that’s that these tarantulas are classified as critically endangered by the International
Union for Conservation of Nature.
It’s sad, but their habitats are being threatened due to logging and firewood harvesting, and
they are only found in such a small area in India.
But thankfully, humans have been breeding them for the past 10 yrs in the arachnid hobby,
so we tarantula hobbyists are the species’ refuge and last hope!
Yay tarantula keepers!
So AC Family, this week we take a quick break from the usual ant colonies of the Ant Room,
of which by the way, I also have an update on which I’ll fill you in, at the end of
this video so stay tuned for that, but for now let’s meet our new family of critically
endangered sapphire tarantulas!
I just know you’ll love them!
So these newborns were pretty much subsisting off their yolk still so they didn’t need
food yet.
It was kinda hard to see them through all that silk, but I could see some individuals,
and my, were they spectacular!
Have a look!
I wasn’t exactly sure how many there were, but I counted about 20-30 spiderlings in the
group.
They all snuggled up to one another enjoying the safety of this silken catacomb, woven
by mom.
Can you imagine these babies have no idea how big the world outside is yet, as for these
first few days of life, they’re stuck at home (aren’t we all) but having mom around
is a great thing, as she herself is quite ferocious of a beast!
She’s massive with an 8 inch leg span, and venom that is known notoriously as being one
of the most potent of all tarantulas.
She’s a feisty one as we saw when I attempted to move her in here, and I have no doubt in
my mind that she would defend these babies with her life if anything ever tried to break
in.
A week later, while most of the babies were still hanging out inside the silken nest,
some brave individuals had ventured closer to the opening of the wood hollow so I could
see them better.
I did notice that some of the spiderlings had already had their first molt, so I placed
some chopped up mealworm for individuals to feed on when they were ready.
At this age, they can settle for feeding like this, and don’t particularly need live moving
prey like when they’re older.
For spiderlings, these babies were pretty big!
They were just a bit over a centimeter long, and check out how their legs are already taking
on that signature sapphire tinge of mom!
Stunning!
I knew that every time these spiderlings molted they would be hungry and needed food, and
for now these mealworm chunks were sufficient, but I knew eventually I would need a steady
supply of small living feeders, that were smaller than the Dubia roach hatchlings that
I had an abundance of from my roach farm, but sadly were totally being ignored by the
spiderlings.
In light of the massive lock down in my city and an inability to buy feeders at a pet store,
I needed a solution to feed these baby spiders and I had a few days to come up with it.
A week later, our spiderlings had grown much bigger now and had all ventured outside of
the nest, as mom had completely torn open the silk entrance.
The babies were beginning to explore the outside world.
I saw them hanging out on the walls of the terrarium, on the bark, and some brave individuals
were daring enough to venture beyond their tree hollow onto the plants.
Take a look at how cute they are, with their awkwardly long legs!
They really were looking more and more like mom now!
They still retreated frequently into the darkened safety of their tree hollow, gathering there
to rest for most of the day.
You know, it was cool seeing a bunch of spiders getting along like this.
But for a colony to be considered a “colony” in my mind, I felt the individuals had to
somehow cooperate at gathering food, like in ants, or in the very least hunt for food
together.
And, AC Family, we’re about to see this behaviour now!
Brace yourselves for our sapphire colony’s first communal hunt!
My video released a couple weeks back where I talked about how I had to get rid of some
of my ant colonies due to lock down in my city making it difficult to access feeders,
was watched by someone in my city who was kind enough to lend me some of his cockroach
feeders to add to my roach farm, but it just so happened, he also had a tonne of newborn
Turkestan roaches which were the perfect size and prey for our colony!
The spiders were gathered and hungry for some meat.
Some had even begun to forage.
The roach hatchlings were now released into their territories and were beginning to explore
the premises unknowing that predators were waiting in ambush at every unexpected turn.
The roaches began to climb the bark, and they inched closer and closer to the spiderlings.
Snatched!
They were picked off one by one!
Some were smart enough to pick them off right at the source by the egg carton I inserted
into their terrarium.
The roaches continued to wander around the territories as the spiders continued to feast
on them roach by roach.
It took less than 30 minutes for each spider to finish a whole baby roach, and afterward
they would resume the hunt for more or start cleaning themselves to prepare for rest until
they were hungry again.
This communal feeding happened until there were no more baby roaches left.
The spiderlings seemed to be happy living as a group, but I knew I had to make sure
all these spiderlings were well fed, if this communal setup would work out.
I also had to make sure the spiders were kept in a limited enclosure like this that forced
them to be around each other at all times to keep them used to being part of a colony.
Moving these spiderlings to a giant tank where they had the chance to break off into solo
existences, increases the chance of cannibalism.
I also made sure mom was very well fed so she wouldn’t ever think of eating her babies,
and at this point her babies were definitely bite-sized for her if she ever wanted to eat
them.
Check out those massive fangs!
I’d hate to be that cockroach!
But despite her menacing demeanor, it completely amazed me how gentle she always was around
her precious spiderlings, with some spiderlings crawling all around her legs and even touching
her fangs.
This was truly spider love if I ever saw it, and such an honour to witness.
OK, guys so this is where I will need your help!
Please have a listen to our options.
With these new babies, I knew we were now faced with two very unique opportunities.
First, we could raise these tarantulas as a colony and peek into the largely unexplored
world of communal tarantulas together!
For one thing, only a small percentage of spider species in the world have been classified
as communal, these spiders being one of them.
Plus, with adult sapphire tarantulas going at over $500 US dollars a piece, you can appreciate
why most owners of this species opt not to try a communal setup as the risk might be
too great in fear of cannibalism, but from what I’ve read in arachnid forums, though
a controversial topic, there have been a lucky few people in the world who have actually
tried it, and have successfully kept the species communally with spiderlings raised together,
like in this photo from Tom Patterson.
It’s indeed possible but generally hasn’t been done a lot in the hobby, so suddenly
our spiders here can become our arachnological case study in communal tarantulas!
Not to mention, there are scientific questions left unanswered.
Like how were these spiderlings even born?
Could it be possible sapphire tarantulas are parthenogenic and can clone themselves without
a partner?
If all these spiderlings turn out to be female, then that would be strong evidence that this
species is capable of parthenogenesis, and what a discovery that would be!
Second, we now have a unique opportunity to help propagate and save the species along
with hobbyists the world over, who are breeding the species, which is so important, because
they’re approaching extinction in the wild.
I personally don’t care to make a profit from them, so I won’t be selling them.
All I care about is learning and tarantula discovery!
So now my question to you guys is, what do you think we should do?
Should we seize this opportunity to learn more about sapphire tarantula colonies, and
continue to raise them communally?
If we go this route, there is of course the risk that one day the tarantulas will start
eating each other, at which point I’ll separate them, but could you imagine if we are successful?!
Imagine a big terrarium with 20 or more massive sapphire tarantulas huddling, feeding, and
living together in a single environment, and documenting it all on film?!
That would be just crazy!
I also wonder if they would continue breeding, until the colony is massive with hundreds
of tarantulas!
OK so there’s that option!
Or are you thinking: Who cares about discovering what keeping a communal tarantula species
is like!
This is a critically endangered species we’re talking about!
Keeping these tarantulas communally is just too risky, and we should be thinking about
saving as many individual spiders as we possibly can to ensure our conservation efforts to
save the species are maximized!
Or perhaps we could try a mix of both?
Maybe, we can try to keep some tarantulas individually, and keep the rest communally?
So guys, please take a quick moment to vote here to help determine what we ultimately
do with these sapphire tarantulas.
Thank you AC Council for your valuable input.
And while we’re at it AC Family, I think you know what’s next!
What should we name our new sapphire tarantula colony?
Let me know in the comments and I’ll choose my favourites for us to vote on in a future
video.
As always, you guys help determine the fate of the inhabitants of our ant room, and even
if these precious 8-legged creatures aren’t ants, I believe we still have a duty to care
for them as best we can, so that their species can live on, and hopefully along the way,
we can discover how amazing it is to be caregivers of this new colony of critically endangered
beasts that came out of nowhere.
Thank you for watching, it’s ant and spider love forever!
Hey, what’s going on here?
Wow!
Tonnes of fire ants above ground?
They’re everywhere!
Something’s happening, guys and I’m not quite sure what it is….
AC Family, did you enjoy today’s episode?
Keep up to date with our new colony of sapphire tarantulas and what is going on with the Phoenix
Empire?
All answers will be revealed next week, so if you haven’t yet, do SMASH that SUBSCRIBE
button and BELL ICON now, and hit ALL so you get notified at every upload.
Also don’t forget to hit the LIKE button every single time including now.
It would really mean a lot to me, guys.
Thank you!
AC Inner Colony, I have left a hidden cookie for you here, if you would like to hear my
take of what’s happening here with the Phoenix Empire.
And guys, did you know that it’s anting season in the Northern Hemisphere, and you
don’t even need to leave your home to start an ant colony?!
You can catch pregnant queen ants from the safety of your own backyard, balcony, or open
window starting this month!
Be sure to visit AntsCanada.com for all your ant keeping and collecting gear shipped to
you in a special package from our ant-loving facility in the USA, so you can get the most
out of your ant keeping experience.
We ship worldwide and also offer full email support if you need our help!
Visit AntsCanada.com today.
And now it’s time for the AC Question of the Week.
Last week, we asked:
What were one of the several signs that the Phoenix Empire was exploding greatly in population?
Congratulations to Jill P who answered:
They were consuming whole Madagascar hissing roaches.
Congratulations Jill P, you just won a free Ultimate Ant Keeping handbook from our shop!
In this week’s AC Question of the Week we ask:
Name one condition that needs to be met in order to decrease the chances of
cannibalism in our spiders?
Leave your answer in the comments section and you could also win a free e-book handbook
from our shop!
Hope you could subscribe to the channel as we upload every Saturday at 8AM EST.
Please remember to LIKE, COMMENT, SHARE, and SUBSCRIBE if you enjoyed this video, to help
us keep making more.
It’s ant love forever!