Avicularia sp. "Peru purple"

[Chris Hamilton]

This is a recent acquisition of mine...she is spectacular in person! She has been mated 4 times...then ate the male on the fourth . So, hopefully we'll get an eggsac out of her.
These are really REALLY nice looking and nice behaving Avics...get one if you can.

Chris

[Elaine Ross]

Wow Chris, she is gorgeous. Good luck for an eggsac in the near future. Sorry she ate the male.

Elaine x

[Phil Rea]

They're a nice spider. Fingers crossed for an eggsac for you (and me too, as I have a mated female here )

[Geoff]

It looks very similar to that which was once known as A. huriana.

[Chris Hamilton]

I agree...but did those original "huriana" have a purple color to them? I mean, the purple REALLY stands out on these...now it's not "bright" but it definitely shows color.

Chris

[Geoff]

To the best of my knowledge I brought the first A. huriana into the UK from Ecuador in 1990 and was fortunate enough to breed them in 1992. They weren't described as A. huriana (by Marc Tesmoingt) until 1996. Here's my first written description of their superficial appearance in 1992:

I originally believed that the spiders were those bestowed with the (questionable?) name of Avicularia magdalenae or “Yellow Banded Orange Toed Bird Eating Spider”. The juveniles’ abdomens were russet in colour and velvet in texture with a longitudinal black stripe down the middle of the dorsal surface traversed laterally on each side by three more equidistant black stripes. The base colour of the legs and carapace was brown and the legs were densely covered in long, fine, straight hairs which appeared to be predominantly gold in colour. The toes were orange and there were yellow bands that were most distinct on the front pairs of legs round the first two joints. It was these yellow bands that led to the mistaken assumption that they were A. magdalenae; however, the yellow pigmentation subsequently, and gradually, diminished with each successive moult. The adult form has a basic brown colour; the yellow bands eventually subside to indistinct light brown bands. The russet colour and black stripes of the abdomen also change to brown. The spiders retain the dense covering of long, fine, straight, golden hairs on the legs giving them a heavy and fluffy appearance. In certain light conditions the reflective properties of the hairs produce a “frosted” effect and the carapace has a faint purple iridescence. The toes remain distinctly orange. The leg spans of newly matured females are in the region of 15cm (6”), the male slightly larger.

[Ray Gabriel]

Interesting, Geoff were your males the same colour as the females or dimorphic?

Ray

[Geoff]

Ray,

Yes, from memory, they could be considered dimorphic. Unfortunately I have no photographs of the male but I remember him as maturing into a relatively plain, dark brown spider.

Now, if one person should know about these things it's you because, according to my records, you had 39 of their progeny (a nice round number(?)) the last of which, coincidentally, I handed to you exactly 15 years ago yesterday (9/12/92) at the West London group meeting at a pub in Hayes (I think). Yes, I know, we've all passed a lot of water since then.

The following year I handed over all of the spiders to the late John Turner. The last time I saw him in 1995 he'd mated one of the original females again but I don't know what happened to them after that.

Mark Allison can probably fill in the gaps with this species better than I can.

Finally , for the benefit of those people trying to breed them, my records show that the spiders were mated on 14/06/92, the egg sac was produced on 17/09/92 and the spiderlings appeared on 04/11/92. A total of 20 weeks from mating to spiderlings of which there was a total of 168.

[Andy Miller]

I love this species i have 2 females and i had a male i got 2 eggsacs and one of them hatched out fine and now i have 3 spiderlings to grow on, they are truely an amazing species and i would say to everyone this is a must have species, good luck with the breeding my females took about 25 days to lay sacs and as i said one of them hatched out fine but the other was a dud.
Good luck Andy

[Chris Hamilton]

Thanks! Her abdomen is growing...so fingers are crossed!

Chris

[andy hood]

my adult female "tootsie"

[andy hood]

and my subadult male " charlie"

[steve wilkins]

i just got a young adult female which i believe to be the 'true' peru purple- i got her last sat at scales & fangs in leigh-on-sea, & they got her from spidershop, so i guess she's the real McCoy. she looks like andy hood's female, but not much like chris hamilton's, & nothing like a.huriana- mine is more like a purple-sheened a.urticans. she has a red abdomen with 2 black bands & a black dorsal stripe (like andy's) this pattern is like that of a.minatrix, but less obvious. the carapace is nothing like chris's- it is light olive green with a lilac iridescence. hope this helps with the ID of a.peru purple.