Resiliant creatures.

[Jimmy Dale]

I don't mean this to sound like a philosophical ramble or anything but..

I was thinking about some stone plants I have in my window and was contemplating how although the conditions provided indoors in England are nothing like the desert they hail from, the plants appear fuller, more colourful and in practically perfect condition while their wild counterparts are shrivelled, brown, snapped and chewed on. Much like captive tarantulas, if properly cared for. Our captives are immaculate and not marred by the loss of a few legs, scraped hairless patches, thin abdomens or external parasites because of the 'secure' conditions we provide.
In spite of this, there are some organisms which are seemingly crave unfavourable conditions in order to thrive. Some seeds for example need to experience freezing conditions before they will germinate, some fish eggs need months in bone dry dirt before they will hatch.
Now it would seem unethical to deliberately expose an animal in your charge to conditions which will cause it discomfort of any kind but I wonder how many spiders, for which only limited breeding success has been achieved, would actually benefit from some 'cruel' exposure to conditions like extended periods of dry heat with no available water or spend months below room temperature without food. These endurance trials may be the key to the seasonal cycling necessary to trigger moulting, egg production and hatching. This could be key in ensuring penultimate males and females moult at appropriate times for a successful encounter, ensuring eggs are being produced and released at the right time, sperm has not been stored in the spermatheca too long etc..

So after that long ramble, what does everyone think about this 'cruel to be kind' approach?

[James Box]

you may be onto something.
these creatures, as you say, have thrived in harsh conditions. we love to put a cute face on animals, assume they all want certain things (waterdishes, for example, and loads of food, tank cleanings etc)...which i call rampant anthropomorphisation, but they tend to do better with neglect.
or perhaps instead of neglect i should say "proper care!"

but you've raised an interesting point, what if research into seasonal conditions was done by more hobbyists and conditions were altered accordingly, while avoiding doing so in sudden clinical ways (ie suddenly switching on blaring heat to mimic a hot day that would've started more gradually, or drenching a spider that would've had at least some warning of rainfall from air pressure changes perhaps), maybe, just maybe we'd see more successful breedings.
food for thought.
evidence in favour of this is that certain spiders appear to need a good winter drop in temperature to produce.

however all this has to be balanced against the resources of the keeper, not everyone has the money (especially with large collections) for all the stats needed for timed gradual temperature changes, or the time to monitor and mimic weather conditions in however many countries their spiders are from.

i've had a further thought, but what if some spiderlings die because they don't develop their endurance or resilience with natural climatic changes and circumstances, not to mention a bit of stress and apparent danger?

how can we test all these thoughts?

this is the kind of thread i personally like mate, theorising and asking what if, and seeing what we can do to improve things for our animals!
onwards and upwards!

[Grant Brown]

Well, I was of the opinion that keepers should strive to emulate natural conditions as best as possible. To me,forcing the animal to exist in conditions far from natural (in terms of water, RH, prey, sunlight, temps) would be cruelty.

And besides, "harsh conditions" are often measured relative to what we need to survive. For other animals, harsh conditions are usually those we impose upon them to make them fit into our tolerance limits.

Obviously I'm not going to expose my tarantulas to parasitoid wasps, killer fungi or mammalian predators, but if an animal in my care has a natural dry/wet season or such then I am trying to emulate this as best I can.

I admit that it is only recently that I've been researching locality data and obtaining year round weather averages for my tarantulas. Most of the animals I have however have fairly easily replicable temp/RH conditions so it's not too much hassle.

The other aspect however is that for some animals, they have been kept in average conditions for a number of years, so perhaps introducing harsh conditions might actually cause more hassle than good!

[darrell hetzel]

this does give reson to think. i have resantly started immitating weather in the respective contries of each species. this is easy for me to do. luckly about half of my collection comes from the guyana. before this experement took place, they had all been kept at a constant temp and rh. when i began, i eased them into wet/dry seasons depending on the country of origen. the gradual change i belive helped. they are now much more active, and feeding better. i myself have not attempted any breeding, so i can only speculate on this asspect. one of my friends is attempting to breed and is trying to do it with temp/rh variants of the region. we will see how it goes. overall, i belive the more drastic variants (if not over done) make for a more comfortable spid. at least mine are.

[wayne balcombe]

this is something i've thought about alot and as you can imagine its not the easiest thing to do when you have a large collection of spiders from so many parts of the world.

i regulate my enclosures at an average temp/RH and give them a drop in temperature at night, i simulate there natural conditions hot/cold wet/dry seasons as best i can.

the idea i had originally was to create a computer program to control heating/cooling systems and humidifiers, a program that has average annual climatic data on all the areas the spiders come from that would regulate everything automaticaly so that you would need only set the location you wish to duplicate and the program would do the rest, incorporating the gradual changes needed for accurate simulation.

sound fantastic?? well its just a dream for me, i haven't the first clue about creating computer programs or the funds available to purchase all the kit needed to make it work if i did................ i'm sure it could be done and would not be surprised if some one has attempted something similar already but thats the sort of thing we'd need to recreate the natural environments of our spiders.

[Stephen jordan]

Hi Wayne, you don't need a computer system to do this, I worked on a prototype in the early nineties that never made it to production because the company folded after gulf war one in the reccession and sadly we were all made redundant. It was a microchip based thermostat that was programmmed with an average years temperature changes for a designated region of the globe, this also was tested on a pump system for a 330,000 gallon Australian reef tank to mimic full moon tide cycles, the only thing it couldnt do was mimic the earth magnetic field change through this cycle and pressure. This pump system worked very well in simuating tidal flow. My old boss was a genius, very modest man but still he was a clever bloke. Theres definatly a niche in the market for this kind of thing but no one has stepped up to the plate, and it can be done, I've seen it. A microchip controlled thermostat, dimmerstat, misting systems it can all be done, especially with todays technology as we tried it over 15 years ago.

[wayne balcombe]

thats exactly the sort of thing i was on about. very interesting post there stephen thank you.

there are thermostats out there that have more than one time and temp circuit but they are still only basic in comparisson to the need we have indicated here and as james pointed out setting up several stats and heating systems that trigger at different times and temps to simulate a gradual temperature rise and fall is unrealistic for most of us or is likely to be extremely demanding on our electricity bills.

it all food for thought and i for one would like to see something like this on the market.

[James Box]

i think what Jimmy's talking about though goes a little further.
kind of like the mentality of why we don't help chickens or snakes hatch from their eggs, ie it's good for them to have a struggle.
again not sure how this might be applied in the hobby, but it's food for thought.

[Stephen jordan]

If were going to mimic a natural enviroment then why not have our wet seasons and our drought times synced with our animals, fertility and and weather is controlled by the suns magnetic field, weather closer to home on earth is caused by atmospheric pressure. So why not only mist tanks when our atmospheric pressure tells us its raining? maybe that two months if that of drought we have here will be enough to trigger breeding? What about African species of spider that rarely see rain at all, then they are brought to UK where it piddles it down 24/7 would they animal not react in confusion to the air pressure saying one thing and reality saying another?

[Jimmy Dale]

I totally agree Stephen, our climate and atmospheric pressure can confound the conditions we are trying to recreate for our captives but as James says - the point of my original post was that we may be molly-coddling our captives too much. Animal welfare basics dictate that we must have clean drinking water available at all times for our animals but what about those which endure months of drought. I am suggesting that depriving some species of what they would prefer could be instrumental in triggering breeding. Likewise, some species will eat and eat ant eat all day long if given the opportunity. This voracious feeding response doesn't necessarily mean they want to be fed to satiation all year round, it is probably indicative of the limited food supply in their habitat and so an aggressive feeding response is necessary to ensure they can get food during the short window when it is available.
I'm not suggesting we all cook / freeze / starve our spiders and hope for success but there are some species which can withstand these conditions - so why not replicate the 'harsh' periods too instead of giving them a constant summer.
Interesting stuff about the use of environmental controls based on seasonal data. I have often pondered about doing this too. A friend of mine keeps a lot of dendro species and he has a kind of micro computer which controls his stats pumps and lights, it's a really clever system. Here's something along the lines of what we have been discussing.http://ecozonevivarium.com/products-...ntrollers.aspx
To be used to full effect in spider keeping then I think only a very large single species / biotope collection would benefit from the investment but it's a really smart piece of kit.

[Stephen jordan]

Hi Jimmy, It is a nice piece of kit but the price tag put me off straight away. Some species of snake need pretty drastic enviroment changes and fasts prior to breeding, its across the board I think. I kept and bred South american fish, Discus mainly and various Tetras, spawning those were easy for , I just turned off the heat for a week or two and did a 35 - 40% water change and after that period of cooling, switched the heating back. I didnt change feeding at all as there was no need to, they all went beserk at it when it had warmed up again. A simple simulated rain storm and temperature rise. Maybe a dry/wet period combined with a fast/reduced feeding regime with a gradual rise in temperature and glut of food will pay dividends in triggering natural behaviour, I'll definatly give it a go, after I've done all my homework and decided on a species to try and breed. I don't even think you'd have to expose them to extemes, many animals react to a distinct change in conditions. A definate change in temperature/humidity/food avaliabilty would probably be enough over a period of time. I definatly agree though that keeping any tropical animal at constants might confuse the hell out of them, My collection rises to about 28c max and drops to 20 - 22c at night, and one of them isnt heated at all, room temp where the tank is placed is spot on at 24c. What I want to know is and I know it's a bit of a daft question but is the rain that falls in say for example Thailand or Laos cold or warm? would that make a diference? Would switching from tap water to collected rainwater be of benefit? This kind of thread always leaves me asking more questions than I can try to answer I agree with you on the use for that stat too, great gadget for controlling a room system if that were possible!

[James Box]

it's hard to replicate in a house, but some inverts get rather cold nights...
i need to back this up, but i believe deserts typically get rather chilly at night, and oddly, this is when the inverts come out. they spend all day in a moderately warm burrow with access to subterranean water...
so perhaps they're often kept wrong too, as if on a slightly less then scorching desert surface, with a fairly mild night.
oh and of course, some get really HEAVY rainfall for a tiny period once a year...
plus a certain seasonal warming and cooling.

then equatorial species will not get a seasonal difference, but they'll get monsoons, which are pretty heavy and brutal, and i think fairly constant for the duration of the period.

also, i read in an old BTS journal, an article by Rick West, mentioning that even the jungle in some places gets cold at night.

i could be wrong or could have misunderstood that, but just to add what i have heard to the discussion.
very interesting stuff!

all i can say is thank God most species of spider in the hobby seem to breed ok with less strict conditional requirements!!!

[Stephen jordan]

Dont know if anyones interested but I found a program that records, temp, rain, humidity, wind direction/speed, satellite imaging from over 7000 weather stations worldwide, updated every minute in realtime, sun rise and sunsets etc. Pretty handy! If anyones interested I can pm the link.

[James Box]

that sounds quite interesting!
if we can correlate it with seasonal data about likely prey items becoming available in numbers we could even get feeding schedules synchronised with that weather data. would provide a better view of what certain species may be experiencing in the wild and perhaps some testing could be done. though i expect it could take years.
the best thing of course to find out is those keepers who have been breeding difficult species for years, how important has all this been?
i'm aware that some seasoned keepers feed sporadically, for one thing, and some are rightly under the impression that many captive species are extremely overfed.

[Grant Brown]

Dont know if anyones interested but I found a program that records, temp, rain, humidity, wind direction/speed, satellite imaging from over 7000 weather stations worldwide, updated every minute in realtime, sun rise and sunsets etc. Pretty handy! If anyones interested I can pm the link.

Is it better than weatherunderground?