I kept tarantulas at home for over 25 years. To find them in their habitat is the most exciting for me! It happened three times so far. There are almost 1000 species of tarantulas described, and every year some new were found. The hobby of keeping tarantulas became popular in the 80s maybe. In the 90s in Germany there was already a large community of keepers. Since then, some species were quickly established by regular breeding, and others, I find too many, were imported regularly. The easy-to-breed species are usually the cheaper ones, and sometimes they become a rare species again because no one was breeding them for a while.
In Belize we found one of the very established, but also still popular tarantulas. It was known for decades as Brachypelma vagans, and in the same genus we have some of the most colorful and popular tarantulas, for example B. smithi (which is now B. hamorii – B. smithi is the former B. annitha). These colorful, former sisters of T. vagans (black and orange batic!) all live on the West Coast of Mexico. Few years back there was a revision, and this is a perfect example how we are still figuring out how to sort the life on earth. A bunch of similar looking (except for the curly one), mostly black Brachypelmas were transferred into the new genus Tliltocatl (what simply means black spider). The more conservative looking species occur mostly on the East Coast of Central America. Such renaming happened to other famous tarantulas (Haplopelma spp., A. versicolor, Citharischius) as well, so tarantula-label-printers are always busy!
We found two large females, both with egg sacs, right next to the path we were walking. As if they were placed there for tourists. They didn’t care about us taking pictures, and they were in perfect shape. The ground was covered in dry leaves. There was an entrance to a possible burrow less than 50cm away. Note how tight she holds the egg sac with her legs. We didn’t get too close, so no comment on defense or escape behavior.
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