Quite amazing behaviour

[Paul Arnold]

I had a spacious,as realistic as i could get it,enclosure for my L.Klugi. A nicely dug in hide and lots of silk plants etc. She was captive bred and of a large size size when i bought her. When i introduced her to the enclosure she ignored the hide,climbing on top of it and placed her legs and peds on a large silk plant that i had partially wedged down the side of the hide so that the leaves fanned out across the back of the enclosure. After around half an hour she began pulling at the plant with her legs and freeing it from where i had wedged it,and i watched with curiosity as she started to manipulate these leaves with both her legs and mouth parts (its the only way i can describe it) I was shocked to notice that after 15 or so minutes she had fashioned a horizontal canopy which spanned her entirely. She crawled under it and began nonchalantly preening herself ?!? Lol i remember at the time being even more perplexed to see that when the preening session was over she climbed down and meandered into the hide. She always kept that leaf canopy and would seek refuge under it when outdoors. Now im not saying that Tarantulas will form a highly organised society anytime soon,but fashioning a shelter surely takes some degree of skill/intelligence. Why ignore the hide and purposefully seek out the plant in this manner? To my mind there was a choice,with two clear options,a decision was made which would require some train of thought no matter how small. Intelligence or instinct? Has anyone else seen behaviour which they thought a tarantula wouldnt be capable of

[Peter Lacey]

I believe in Andrew Smith's video of the Earth tigers of Bornero he raises the issue of them furnishing the entrance to their burrow with leaves. The same has been observed in many field trips.
Its funny that you mention L. klugi, my one decided to completely trash the furnishings, tore down the temp dial and when I laid a ruler on the substrate to get a measurement she took this into her hide!

[Paul Arnold]

I found her to be the most curious Tarantula I have ever owned! Really inquisitive. If i moved anything in the enclosure she would always pop out from the hide to see what was going on. Lol when she got too close for my own comfort i retreated,though i must say i never found her to be overtly aggressive, fair enough a bit grouchy sometimes but hey ho! Sadly she passed away a year and a half ago in the most strange of circumstances. Moult number four had come around whilst in my care,i carefully lifted the bark to watch,i noticed that whilst she was wriggling around freeing herself there was a fair bit of excrement that was "leaking" out of her. When she righted herself she started to move,it was awful to watch as her legs had not hardened. Something was seriously wrong as she would not stop dragging herself about. Two days after that I found her dead in the hide,though oddly three of her legs remained outstretched whilst the rest were curled under. I buried her in the garden,i was sad to see her go

[James Box]

I found her to be the most curious Tarantula I have ever owned! Really inquisitive. If i moved anything in the enclosure she would always pop out from the hide to see what was going on. Lol when she got too close for my own comfort i retreated,though i must say i never found her to be overtly aggressive, fair enough a bit grouchy sometimes but hey ho! Sadly she passed away a year and a half ago in the most strange of circumstances. Moult number four had come around whilst in my care,i carefully lifted the bark to watch,i noticed that whilst she was wriggling around freeing herself there was a fair bit of excrement that was "leaking" out of her. When she righted herself she started to move,it was awful to watch as her legs had not hardened. Something was seriously wrong as she would not stop dragging herself about. Two days after that I found her dead in the hide,though oddly three of her legs remained outstretched whilst the rest were curled under. I buried her in the garden,i was sad to see her go

spiders have a cluster of nerves called a ganglion instead of a brain, so this has led people to assume that they are not that bright.
however, i agree...there's something to an animal that can manipulate its environment to its taste, and hunt and seek water out, etc etc.
i'm not saying they're going to discover space travel any day soon, but they have the intelligence required to survive and make use of their environments. truly amazing!

i know that Cyriopagopus schoiedtei is known to use random detritus in their webs...someone i know off here put some pink sequins into the enclosure to see what would happen, and sure enough, the spider decorated her home with them! very funny

sorry to hear about the death...i had a Pamphobeteus sp "ecuador II" that died in a similar fashion. moulting is a difficult and risky process...it's a miracle everytime they succeed! but it doesn't make it any less sad when they fail

[Colin D Wilson]

Paul, i can't see any problem with your spider wanting a little Gazebo in her tank, maybe a scale size BBQ might not look to much amiss
seriously though she must have felt the need to make a "secondary" retreat for some reason...how to determin why ... i've no idea.

The most comical "unusual" behaviour i've come across that could be instinct or intelligence is when Elaine was feeding her spiders (tubs on the floor as per usual) she popped a cricket into a tub (G iheringi i think) and the spider went for it as per usual ... the cricket jumped out the tub and wandered a distance over the carpet ... followed by the spider who caught up with it, subdued it and then toddled back directly to the tub and settled down to eat as per usual.
Is this instinct as in a wild spider returning to the burrow ... or intelligence as the spider had to realise it was out of it's comfort zone and decide to return "home"