Avicularia community?

[Steve McIntyre]

Hi Everyone, just a few points... I too have had cannibalism with Avic. versis, seems they can't help it! Lost quite a few, unfortunately!
Electro- magnetism...!! Will this just affect Avic metallica.. (get it? oh, never mind!!) James.. the Yamia sp. Koh Samui live close together in the wild, in piles of detrus, leaves, etc, making horizontal
tube webs but in captiviy they make U- shaped vertical ones. Why? Probably depends on the type of container they are kept in. As for 'true' communal living, ie, side by side, outside of their webs, this doesn't happen. Apologies to anyone who I gave the wrong idea to. Yamia aren't aggressive to each other as far as I've observed, probably cos they don't 'interact' like, say, Pokies. So you'll probably hardly see them, except when you drop a few mealies at the mouth of their burrow and they come to feed! Hope this helps a bit!

[Colin D Wilson]

Steve, your jokes are getting worse

Anyway, having not kept this species, so on a learning curve here.
Would you say that keeping Yamia sp. in a "larger than normal" enclosure would benefit them in the way they naturally build their web structure?
If this is so you could probably construct a glass tank in the style of a larger ant farm type so that the web tube would lie lengthways giving you a nice view.

[Steve McIntyre]

Hi Colin, the jokes don't get better, sorry! I kept 3 yamia females in a 30cm long tank with a substrate mix of top soil, coco fibre and layers of thin bark, plus crushed dried leaves, trying to simulate their natural surroundings. They tended to make their tube web under bark or bits of broken plantpot. When slings were born and dispersed in the tank, they made single-holed burrows, which were evenly spaced (as far as I could see!) When I threw a load of mealies in, it was amazing to watch as they all appeared at the top of the holes and took the 'passing' food. Good idea about an ant-type set-up, I might have a go!

[Louise~Nichols]

Electro- magnetism...!! Will this just affect Avic metallica.. (get it? oh, never mind!!)

Nope...it'll affect P.Metallica too... oops!! *runs off giggling*

[Colin D Wilson]

I take it from the "Natural surroundings" comment that you've experienced them on one of your yearly trips then?
this is added to my list of community setups to venture into.
You're not at the lectures, from my list, will have to bend your ear about this at the next show, are you standing at Kettering or maybe just visiting.

[James Box]

Hi Everyone, just a few points... I too have had cannibalism with Avic. versis, seems they can't help it! Lost quite a few, unfortunately!
Electro- magnetism...!! Will this just affect Avic metallica.. (get it? oh, never mind!!) James.. the Yamia sp. Koh Samui live close together in the wild, in piles of detrus, leaves, etc, making horizontal
tube webs but in captiviy they make U- shaped vertical ones. Why? Probably depends on the type of container they are kept in. As for 'true' communal living, ie, side by side, outside of their webs, this doesn't happen. Apologies to anyone who I gave the wrong idea to. Yamia aren't aggressive to each other as far as I've observed, probably cos they don't 'interact' like, say, Pokies. So you'll probably hardly see them, except when you drop a few mealies at the mouth of their burrow and they come to feed! Hope this helps a bit!

Steve, cheers for the info! i'm quite excited about getting the Yamia's.
was it you who discovered them? for some reason i got that impression.
i'll be taking your advice with the slings when they arrive (i ordered 8 of them through Craig McInnes' ad here on the BTS site).
your Avic joke (and Louise's follow up) made me chuckle (the bad ones always do haha!)
...it might affect Diodethele sp as well D'OH!

if you're at Kettering or BTS i'd love to be present for the Yamia chat!

Colin, that's good news about the gigas!

the "ant farm" approach i feel is a potentially good one. if something was used to block the light most of the time, the spiders might feel comfortable digging right to the glass. one could take off the cover occasionally to view.
i'm attempting something slightly similar with some small burrowing scorps i have...using the larger tubes that Lee sells, and putting a jaffa cake tube round them, i'm hoping to be able to see my "pet holes" more often.
i know that's off topic, sorry!
but it might be a good idea with semi-communal burrowing T's as well...
though now i've already gone and bought a few huge plastic storage boxes for them! haha

[Steve McIntyre]

Hi everyone, Colin, yeh, I'll be 'standing' at Kettering, though gotta book yet! Lok forward to the chat. James, Yep, I 'discovered' the Yamia, back in 2003, alomg with the ornithoctonus sp. Koh Samui. Gave Craig some of the original ones and he's had a lot of success with breeding them. Louise, I think your jokes are (nearly) as bad as mine (and that's BAD) Look forward to the next one!
Speaking of 'community' spids, I've just (tried to) separate 5 Pokie fasciata from 2 colonies of 16 and 20 (10 total!) They certainly didn't want to come out of the sweetjar. When I looked intensly, after disturbing them, they were all sitting on the outside of the bark, perfectly camoflaged. Counting them as best I could, there only seemed to be 1 or 2 missing from the original total. Only wish that Avics were the same. Look forward to chatting with you all at Kettering.