Aphonopelma seemanni
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| Costa Rican zebra tarantula | ||||||||||||||||
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| Aphonopelma seemanni (F. O. P-Cambridge, 1897) |
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Eurypelma seemanni |
The Costa Rican zebra tarantula, also known as striped knee tarantula (Aphonopelma seemanni), inhabits most of western Costa Rica, as well as other parts of Central America, such as Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua. It is black with white stripes near the joint. The specimens from Nicaragua are tan coloured.[citation needed]
Zebra tarantulas are deep burrowing tarantulas. They live in open semi-arid grasslands in costa rica, and are found in large aggregations. The deep burrows keep the temperature below the highest daytime temperatures, and retain humidity. Some sources claim it is a rainforest species, but in reality they seemingly have broad habitat tolerances.
Zebra tarantulas can grow to about 4-5 inches (10-13 cm) including legspan. Females will live up to 20 years. Males however, will live a much shorter life of about 5 years. Other sources claim a life of only 2 or 3 years, respectively.
The zebra tarantula's diet consists of many insects. In the wild, they will eat insects such as cockroaches. In captivity they will eat crickets with no problem, the best to feed these animals is a mixture of different insects, including grub worms, as they are high in calcium. Take care not to use wild insects which might have been exposed to pesticides that may harm the spider.
[edit] References
- Platnick, Norman I. (2008): The world spider catalog, version 8.5. American Museum of Natural History.
