Stripe Knee Tarantula
(Aphonopelma seemanni)
Order: Arachnida
Family: Theraphosidae
Genus: Aphonopelma
Species: seemanni
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HABITAT AND RANGE:
They are terrestrial burrowing spiders
native to the tropical forests of Costa
Rica, Nicaragua, El Salvador and
Honduras. |
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PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS:
The Tarantula is usually a brown to
black color with russet hairs, orange
spinnerets and underbelly. The legs are
dark brown/black with distinct
longitudinal cream lines down the legs.
Like all tarantulas it has two body
regions, the cephalothorax (prosoma) and
the abdomen (opisthosoma). The
appendages of the cephalothorax include
four pairs of legs, a pair of pedipalps
and a pair of fang-tipped chelicerae.
The abdomen differs from that of the
true spiders by having, on the
posterior, only two pairs of spinnerets
rather than three pairs, and by having
ventrally two pairs of booklungs rather
than one pair. The bodies of both male
and female are always covered with
bristly hairs, a feature that other
spiders don’t have. This is a large
spider with a body length of about 2 ½
inches and a leg span of about 5 inches. |
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ADAPTATIONS:
The Stripe Knee Tarantula can secrete
silk from their feet to provide adhesion
during locomotion, enabling these
spiders to cling to smooth vertical
surfaces. |
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DIET:
In the wild, the Tarantulas will eat
small amphibians or mammals and insects.
Tarantulas will normally eat any prey in
the right size range. They crush their
prey with their fangs and spit digestive
juices over the body and then suck up
the resulting liquid. |
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REPRODUCTION AND DEVELOPMENT:
Tarantulas may reach sexual maturity in
as few as two years (fast-growing
arboreal species in the tropics), or in
as many as nine years (burrowing
species). Males do not molt after
reaching maturity. Soon after the males
do reach maturity, they begin wandering
in search of females. The males have
hooks on the first set of legs that will
help hold the female above them during
copulation. Before copulation, a male
takes up his palps sperm that he has
deposited on a specially-spun sperm web.
During copulation, he inserts the sperm
into the female’s genitalia. After the
male has inserted his sperm he leaves
very quickly before the female has a
chance to eat him. Females will then lay
100 to 400 eggs hatching between 1 ½ to
2 1/2 months. The young are about the
size of a golf ball. They are fairly
short lived; females have a life span of
12 to 15 years and males die soon after
maturity, at 3 years. |
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STATUS IN WILD:
They are stable in the wild. |
