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Invert fans?

...........................The afar bit is quite important.

LLLOL

So next is to get closer, and closer, and closer. Then poke one - gently and slowly. Just get it to move.
You cannot seriously be scared of money-spiders????? They are still (very small) spiders.

Been there - one day I realised the taught arachnophobia was total lunacy in the UK, so taught myself otherwise. The only things to be afraid of in the UK are domestic livestock, of pretty much all forms.
 
What if the spider is in the house?

Handily we have no small amount of resident spiders in the flat. Thankfully mostly of the 'tiny body with long legs' variety. The deal is they stay in the corners and I stay on the sofa. I'm certainly not getting close enough to examine their family jewels.
 
Handily we have no small amount of resident spiders in the flat. Thankfully mostly of the 'tiny body with long legs' variety. The deal is they stay in the corners and I stay on the sofa. I'm certainly not getting close enough to examine their family jewels.
Are you sure they're spiders and not harvestmen?
 
I've seen a couple of these nasty monsters closer than I'd like.

1354788425_centipedeonarm.thumb.JPG.ea04f0e86714914f030771d2ea6a8e58.JPG



Very painful bite apparently...at the moment it seems to be millipede season, only 3 inches or so as adults but flipping everywhere. Some of the bird species seem to enjoy them, which goes against my obviously duff thought that they were distasteful (noxious pheromone) to most predators.
 
I have both volumes of the original edition of The Spiders of Great Britain and Ireland by Michael Roberts. Besides being the definitive work for identification it is also a work of art. The paintings are stunning. I have field guides and keys to most invertebrate groups having spent most of my career as a field ecologist and being fascinated by invertebrates since childhood. Now I spend a lot of time in the summer photographing them.
_DSC6462-Edit by Colin Bailey, on Flickr
_TOM5431 by Colin Bailey, on Flickr
Karkloof Damselfly by Colin Bailey, on Flickr
_Chatham Dragonfly 2 by Colin Bailey, on Flickr
Ham Wall Damsel by Colin Bailey, on Flickr
_DSC5208-1 by Colin Bailey, on Flickr
Eggs by Colin Bailey, on Flickr
 
Only western diets are ner totally devoid of invertebrates. (I cannot recommend mopane worms - damp cardboard. Mealworms and crickets are frequently said to taste slightly of peanuts).

Limbang market, Sarawak, a long time ago: and comparative taste-testing of Sago grubs: what seemed perilously-raw prepared god knows how; and boiled; and broiled over charcoal (by far the best/most recognisable)


Taste vaguely like potato, texture like yoghurt into creme cheese, depending on which. I lived, obvs, but still feel icky thinking about it >20yrs later. No thanks.

(There, you could also buy a six-pack of frogs - utterly-giant bastards, sat tied-together &/popped exactly into the 6-pack soft-plastic ringthings that are used to snap cans of beer together. Except the contents were live, and gently pawing at you with all limbs %) )

( I must go hunt down the giant crate of film negatives from that period...)
 
Limbang market, Sarawak, a long time ago: and comparative taste-testing of Sago grubs: what seemed perilously-raw prepared god knows how; and boiled; and broiled over charcoal (by far the best/most recognisable)


Taste vaguely like potato, texture like yoghurt into creme cheese, depending on which. I lived, obvs, but still feel icky thinking about it >20yrs later. No thanks.

(There, you could also buy a six-pack of frogs - utterly-giant bastards, sat tied-together &/popped exactly into the 6-pack soft-plastic ringthings that are used to snap cans of beer together. Except the contents were live, and gently pawing at you with all limbs %) )

( I must go hunt down the giant crate of film negatives from that period...)
Was that at the Frog and Peach restaurant? The one run by Arthur Strieve - Greebling?
 
I have both volumes of the original edition of The Spiders of Great Britain and Ireland by Michael Roberts. Besides being the definitive work for identification it is also a work of art. The paintings are stunning. I have field guides and keys to most invertebrate groups having spent most of my career as a field ecologist and being fascinated by invertebrates since childhood. Now I spend a lot of time in the summer photographing them.
_DSC6462-Edit by Colin Bailey, on Flickr
_TOM5431 by Colin Bailey, on Flickr
Karkloof Damselfly by Colin Bailey, on Flickr
_Chatham Dragonfly 2 by Colin Bailey, on Flickr
Ham Wall Damsel by Colin Bailey, on Flickr
_DSC5208-1 by Colin Bailey, on Flickr
Eggs by Colin Bailey, on Flickr


nice pics
here is one that I saw

E1-D6-B282-1-A91-4-CDE-9-B2-C-F4652-AD22-C7-D.jpg
 
I used to use crickets as feeders but I found them a bit too pungent. I use locust/hoppers now, easy to keep and catch.

Friends keep colonies of Dubia roaches as feeders but I have never fed any of my critters on them.


You have never kept crickets/locusts/grasshoppers/roaches (the usual diet for tarantulas). Crickets and allies in particular are great to watch as they are reasonably confident so don't hide like roaches. The live and breed happily in large groups, so long as there is enough food, AND, most will sing!!!!!
 
You have never kept crickets/locusts/grasshoppers/roaches (the usual diet for tarantulas). Crickets and allies in particular are great to watch as they are reasonably confident so don't hide like roaches. The live and breed happily in large groups, so long as there is enough food, AND, most will sing!!!!!
We kept crickets to feed Rose, our pet Chilean Rose tarantula, who we looked after for many years. I did take her to work at one stage & kept her in my office, where she very effectively cured my secretary's arachnophobia. Unfortunately, some well-meaning person went to feed her & managed to let some of the crickets loose, & they lodged in the suspended ceiling and chirruped away for many months.
 
next door but one, bred crickets to feed some lizard thing. One day the tank broke and ALL the crickets escaped.

One ended up under the floor boards in my kitchen - what a racket it made, reverberated throughout the house for months.

One day it got distinctly louder, I assumed it surfaced. In an act of desperation I pulled out the fridge, and there it was staring at me....it felt the full force of my booted foot......
 
We had house crickets in one room at work once - I like the sound.
Not sure how annoying the odd one or two around indoors would be - probably not very to me.

I used to use crickets as feeders but I found them a bit too pungent.

I have bred thousands upon thousands upon thousands of them as feeder insects - house and banded. I don't know what you mean by pungent, unless literally the smell. If you refer to the smell - mine never smelt of anything much. They do need plenty of ventilation though, and to be kept totally dry - my drinkers for them were cage-bird drinkers with the spout/base crammed with cotton-wool. I used my own mix of dry food, powdered in a modified cheap Chinese grain mill.
If they do get damp, the droppings may start to compost and generate a LOT of ammonia.
I still have the "wardrobe" - an insulated warmed box, big enough for a breeding colony - several hundred, and probably 30-40 rearing jars (3 shelves and probably 12 per shelf, if memory serves, of plastic sweet jars with lids fitted with gauze).

For small, even modest, collections of invert's, breeding feeders is not worth the hassle as the consumption/demand just would not justify it.
 


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