US Aphonopelma - collection photos

[Paul Cockerill]

I've put together a few pics of some of my collection that I thought some of you would be interested in seeing, i'm a die hard fan of US native theraphosids, and can't get enough of them!

0.1.0 A. chalcodes





0.1.0 A chalcodes ( I have several variants of this species - this particular specimen is a young adult female)






0.1.0 A. spp. "Paysoni" ( a rather large, robust spp. from northern Arizona, wicked spiders and some of personal faves)








0.1.0 A. moderatum (v. young juv female)




0.1.0 A. caniceps (not too sure where this spp. originates from or the actual distribution range, some sources claim that they are found sporadically in parts of southern Texas through to central Mexico, others claim they are not found in the US, ... we will see!... never the less a stunning spp.



0.1.0 Aphonopelma hentzi







1.0 Aphonopelma hentzi (Juv male sexed ventrally??)






Hope you enjoyed and thanks very much for looking.

Paul.

[Colin D Wilson]

Some nice examples there Paul,

We have a few Aphono's here ... some of which are just .... Aphonopelma "Sp" that we have only managed to place into one of the "groups" (even with muchly appreciated help from the likes of Stuart Longhorn who certainly knows his stuff).

And they say avics are mixed up !!!

[Christopher Smallman]

Who says brown spids are boring

A fine collection you have there.

I have a Aphonopelma anax no bigger than your little finger nail who will throw threats at me if decide to remove her half eaten cricket after 24 hours lol.

Chris.

[Paul Cockerill]

Who says brown spids are boring

A fine collection you have there.

I have a Aphonopelma anax no bigger than your little finger nail who will throw threats at me if decide to remove her half eaten cricket after 24 hours lol.

Chris.

Thanks Chris, haha it's very hard liking brown spiders, but personally I prefer drab colours anyway, i much prefer the subtle tans, blondes and browns over the whole blue spider craze that's around at the moment, i'd rather settle for a nice chunky brown aphonopelma anyday... structurally they are very cool and look like the textbook tarantula to me ..!

Defensiveness varies alot between this genus, for example I have several chalcodes some of them are so docile and lazy that they couldn't even be bothered to offer you a threat pose, but on the other hand the SA female chalcodes shown in the second picture is very defensive and will splay her chelicerae, bare fangs and strike at the littlest disturbance.

Paul

[Christian Elowsky]

There are too many collectors hitting Arizona and labeling stuff whatever they think will sell. Sometimes an animal is labeled A. chalcodes, or A. apacheum, or A. sp. "New River" or A. sp. "being sold by greedy so and sos". It makes me ill some days to see this going on. I am glad a few have made it into hands which I hope will breed them, and hopefully the characters to identify them will be published. Brent has given two great talks at our conference, but we're just as in the dark here as there. At least we never have a chance to get bored in our hobby with relabeling occurring monthly.

Aphonopelma hentzi has a range which covers literally thousands of square miles, and the variation in that one species is staggering, so who knows what we'll find out about our "boring" brown tarantulas.

[Paul Cockerill]

Christian I fully agree with what your saying,... what people (hobbyists) need to understand is that "New River" "Flagstaff" etc are just areas of collection and not species .... I believe commercial collectors label them up as this really as a clever way of marketing and making money, there's alot of people that believe these just to be variants Aphonopelma chalcodes.

I've seen a fair few specimens of both the flagstaff and the New River and my personal observation and opinion is that they are just 'chalcodes',.... however i'm in absolutely no way an expert and this is for Brent to reveal after he has completed he's work on the genus.

Also I do believe the Payson spider (sp. "Paysoni") to be something different just by the sheer size and bulk of them, also they seem to have very faint striations on the legs that seem to be absent in the chalcodes... well the ones that i've seen anyway.


Paul