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Invert fans?

That's cool, I'm glad that you both enjoy them.

Anything stopping you from keeping them? Tarantulas are especially easy to keep.
 
I clicked on this thread expecting to see this:

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Or possibly this:

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I have actually kept and bred house and banded crickets and Tenebrio molitor in profusion...........................

My passion for wildlife in captivity is in breeding them and inverts tend to be prolific or a non-starter.

If I had the time and inclination, I'd look to breed spiders - one very serious challenge. That said, I find solifuges even more interesting.

Tarantulas are just 8-legged puppies :)

I also like millipedes and centipedes - VERY different creatures and attractive for their opposite characteristics -inoffensive, slow and vegertarian, and the opposite.
 
I also like millipedes and centipedes - VERY different creatures and attractive for their opposite characteristics -inoffensive, slow and vegetarian
(agree!)

And occasionally - effing huge, like Visitors from Another World. I'm thinking Yxongololo/ the Giant African Millipede, a thing I'd love to see, in the wild.
 
I opened this thread thinking it might be about a deviant lifestyle which had passed me by :)

Anyhow, they're fascinating creatures, each in their own way, and I have plenty as uninvited guests in my house but they are free to come and go as they choose.
 
I'm mostly a tarantula keeper, they are surprisingly affordable and easy to look after. They are fascinating to watch as they will rearrange things how they want it.

Brilliant little things.
 
They are fascinating to watch .....................................
Brilliant little things.

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!!!!!
 
My other half has taken an interest in spiders and requested a spotters guide for Xmas. Apparently to identify a lot of them correctly you have to be able to see their eyes.

In my view if you can see their eyes you're either far too close or the spider is far too large...

More usually it is the genetalia that are diagnostic. In many spiders, even UK ones, their eyes are easily seen some distance off.

Males have one pair of palps that are modified for reproduction - even in quite small spiders this will be obvious, so sexing most spiders is easy. I'll leave further details for you to google and explore.

For UK spiders there is ony one field guide/monograph that is worth buying - just browse Amazon.
 
should go to Skuon in Cambodia. Had a few interesting dinners there

Large spiders are eaten the world-over.

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).
 
Thanks for the pointers Vinny but as a massive arachnophobe* I also don't want to be so close I can see their spidery wedding tackle...

*fear of massive spiders.

ALL a state of mind, and almost always learnt. Put your mind into neutral and admire their beauty (from afar).
In the UK we are incredibly lucky - essentially no wildlife can do you any harm at all, and even if they did, it would be by fluke.

On larger UK spiders, the male's "boxing gloves" are VERY easily seen at reasonable distance.
 


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