And welcome to InverteCast. I am Leah and with me is Simon from the Mantis Garden and
today we have special guests April and Sam who run eight-legged adventures together.
Hello April and Sam. Hi, glad to be here with you guys today. Yay, we're super stoked to have you on the show, absolutely.
So you guys breed and sell tarantulas, yeah? Yes, it's our hobby that some people find a little strange.
I think it's wonderful actually and I know that I first met you guys at an Expo. I think it was a Show Me Snakes one up in Loveland.
No, I think it was the Repticon down in Aurora. Oh, okay, well either way it was really great.
Where's Aurora? Aurora? It's the east side of Denver. Yeah, there you go. Oh, you still call around them.
Yeah, it's still part of Denver and like, you know, the metro area if you will.
Obviously, it's a stupid question.
Not at all, Simon. I mean, you're in Manchester. How are you supposed to know?
So, you know, confusing. Oh, but yeah, no, I remember that show. It was wonderful.
You guys actually gave me a Salmopus or Minna who is still obviously doing wonderfully and actually about the size of a 50 cent piece now.
So awesome and I, oh, they're such an awesome species. Like they grow like little weeds. I love it.
One kind of cool thing about them is that they actually have capsaicin in their venom.
It's like what makes a jalapeno spicy. That's the active ingredient in their venom.
Wow. I honestly didn't know that. Yeah, that's one cool thing about them.
Yeah, that whole family actually has it in it. So anything in the Salmkias family, they have capsaicin in their venom.
We call them spicy tarantulas. Yeah, they're spicy. They are spicy. Quite literally spicy. I love it.
How funny is that? Like I had no idea that that was a property of their venom. How interesting.
Well, different tarantulas, you know, they have different, you know, different active ingredients and stuff.
And over here in America, the new world tarantulas, they tend to have a lot lighter venom. And that's when you tend to find things like capsaicin or people equated to being like a bee sting.
Most of the time they're talking about New World is what they call it. New World tarantulas.
Right. Okay. All right. Well, I've got, I'll go ahead and start us off with our first question.
So I want to know how did you guys get started breeding tarantulas? And where did eight legged adventures come from?
That'd be my little brainchild right there. So I've always like tarantulas since I was a kid. Like I was that kid that was, you know, at the school yard, I was playing in the bush, you know, looking at the tarantulas, you know, or looking at spiders and stuff and ants and capturing them and stuff.
I've just always had a fascination with insects. I mean, just in general, insects are acting as everything. And so as I got older, of course, you know, in my, you know, I actually had my own money to go buy my own things and stuff.
I started getting some tarantulas. And then from there we got even more. And then it was like, I think we can, you know, turn this into a little side business for us.
And so that's how everything started. And then we went back and forth on a name for a while. And then I think actually you came up with the name eight legged adventures.
I actually don't remember.
Because I was reading through the questions you'd sent over and that was one of them. And I was like, uh,
Where did we come up with that name?
I remember we were troubleshooting for a while. Like we had different different things that we thought about, you know, just different names and stuff. And a lot of people you'll see them. They'll just put like their name for like their business, you know, it's like, Oh, yeah,
Ed's exotics or something.
You know, I'm guilty. I'm so guilty of that because I'm tarantula.
Yeah.
And then the.
But, but to me, that's clever. I don't know. I find that clever, you know, but I mean, just like, we kind of wanted to do something that was a little bit different.
You know, kind of,
Oh, I appreciate that though. I mean, I love that you.
I love that you came to the name eight legged adventures because essentially that is what it is for me, like,
I was a little tiny bit of background on me. I got into tarantulas after I basically got over my fear of spiders in general.
I was, I was terrified of spiders too.
Right.
Yeah, I mean, I'm a good majority of my life. I was terrified of spiders and, you know, like needlessly afraid of little house spiders and stuff like that. And
once I learned about them, then I became more fascinated. And then as you said, you just get one after another and you just kind of, it goes from there. And now I have 76, I believe.
And then I mean, and that's including like true spiders and other other inverts like that. So I of course, you know, but if I can squeeze it in.
Yeah.
So you can't just go for true spiders or you just go for tarantulas. Did you think I'll eight legged adventures. Does that include all spiders or just tarantulas.
No, so we only do tarantulas right now, but I think it was more of a like, we don't have time to do everything sort of thing.
And a lot of like true spiders, they're not.
And I think that's kind of limited to the point of being endangered, I guess, whereas a lot of tarantula species are more on that end. Yeah, pretty much anything that's a pokey is either endangered or critically endangered right now.
Oh yeah, the pokeys are in serious trouble, for sure.
And well in the wild.
Yeah, thankfully in the hobby they're, they're, they're thriving.
And there's four post ethereas in captivity than there are in the wild. So it's like, we've reached this tipping point where we know people are still taking them from the wild, which is like at this point it's completely illegal.
Yeah.
And they're still being put into a pet trade because they're, they're really pretty.
But yeah, it's just not like it's not a sustainable thing to do.
We end up with tarantula species that are just really taken out. Like that's the same thing that happened with the rose hair.
They used to be one of the most common tarantulas in the trade.
Now there's like hundreds of dollars for a little tiny sling.
Well yeah, because they're, they're just so endangered in the wild and they take forever to grow.
Yes.
Anything in the Kramas stole the family takes forever to grow.
Facts, right.
For sure.
Yeah, I actually, I agree. I feel that is actually something that I thought about doing. I have been wanting to help breed to keep species like in the hobby and to kind of hopefully like contribute to reducing them being caught in the wild and like brought out.
It's just really hard to breed here in the States because we are so spread out. And, you know, if you, if you're, if you have a male, a lot of times, sometimes people will just take your mail and like run off or like not, not split the sack with you and things like that.
So it can be really frustrating. So I can understand why you would just go into business with yourself and do it that way.
Okay, so I have a lot of respect for you guys and what you're doing and, you know, contributing to the hobby because it's, it's important. It's important work.
Well, and I mean, we do have some people that like here, you know, there's there was a gentleman we actually just traded some tarantulas for for some of his males.
But he was wanting to go in on the sack and stuff and I'm assuming we get a sack. I'll still give him some but I actually actually just traded him Jeff and tarantulas that he actually wanted for what he had because then I told him I was like I would just feel horrible if you know I put your mail on there.
My female is like, oh, dinner time, you know, and horrible or something, you know, or the sack, the sack, you know, the mom doesn't doesn't want it doesn't take care of it and just, you know, dies essentially.
I mean, there's a lot of things that happen when you're breeding. And I just, you know, I would love straight let him know that and I was like, that's why I'd rather trade for these than then try to split a sack or anything because I don't know what could possibly happen with this.
Yeah, that's pretty smart. I have a bonatina minox actually at the moment who he just matured about a month and a half ago.
So he's like a fresh male. So if you want to trade for that species, I would be happy to but I digress. I apologize.
No, no, no, where's I think actually our next one that we're going to breed we have a male and a female rose here.
Oh, cool.
So we're going to pair those guys next. We also have a waiting for our female post-Atheria Metallica to mold and then we have a male ready to roll with her. And then we are trying to get a let's see sack we're actually currently sitting on one like the sack is sitting in there.
Yeah.
And so we're kind of hoping to see what happens with that and then what was the other thing there was one more thing that we were age poultry please. Oh yeah, we have an age poultry piece now.
And the pumpkin patch. Yeah, we have pumpkin patch mail that we're going to be trying to bring to all of those are amazing species. I would absolutely love an age poultry piece because I currently don't have one in my in, you know, my collection.
I had two mature males at one point and you know how it is with mature males they just don't last as long.
It's like your worst nightmare when you when you buy two of the species and you're like, I love these guys and then they both turn out to be male and you're like.
Find a home for her.
Right.
So, Simon, did you have a question for Sam in April.
I didn't have a question. I was finding was so other similarities between the breeding of spiders and the mantis.
I've got a problem.
There's like, I, like, for instance, I kept 16 of one species last, last year.
And they're all adults now.
Oh, female.
Oh, no.
I didn't get a single male out of kind of 16 of them.
Oh, my God.
I booked for a male and hope somebody's got a mature male.
And that's the cheese at the right time.
That's insane.
I'm going to say the same as you because we have the same problem. I could put them together and she could eat his face off.
So, same with the exact same.
They could play and you try out or whatever.
You know, I find it.
So we've got exactly the same problems.
That's why I was smiling at it wasn't particularly a question.
It was just being aware of the problems you have.
I was saying as mine, you know, different book, but same exact same problems.
I think mantis and tarantulas are the only real to where you have all those problems.
Yeah, the others are pretty if I I can put whatever I start in books, sticking sex all the sort of other after parts.
You'll have the same issues as mantis and tarantulas are all spiders.
You know, I people often ask about that.
Like, you know, what do you think the males get eaten?
And to me, it kind of makes sense from a survival point when you think about it because the females going to go lay an egg sack and she's going to need all the protein that she could possibly get.
That's true.
And in my mind, I kind of see it as a really survival strategy, you know, and just the way that I look at it.
I mean, the male is going to die anyways, you know, most likely because he's not going to be able to mold because he has his hooks or most of the time or whatever, you know, yeah, the end belay.
Yeah. And so I kind of find it like a really, really smart survival strategy.
Like if you actually look at it like, if you take any kind of humanity out of it, we just look at it from like pure survival and makes a lot of sense.
I mean, I agree. I mean, I think that I think Simon's right. And I think you're right, Sam, that, you know, the females just going to need a lot more protein than what she already has.
She's going to need those extra nutrients and whatnot to be able to make that egg sack and develop those babies.
So yeah, make sense.
Yeah, I get it.
At least we're not all into breeding octopuses because the female dies in that one.
True.
Right.
We actually had a ghost mantis for a little bit. He was pretty cool.
Yeah, I loved his little wizard hat.
Yeah, he had this little wizard hat because it was all like, like that. Oh, he was funny. He was a.
Yeah, I love the place on the side. So I got over 100 behind me.
Yeah, Simon, Simon has probably every species of mantis you could possibly have.
Just be like, yeah, it's awesome.
I'm always jealous. I'm always jealous because it's funny because I had a ghost mantis as well.
Like for me, you know, I don't know if you guys feel this way too, but like there's kind of a like a myth or like a what is it like folklore in the hobby to where like everybody has that one species of something that they just can't keep because they kill them constantly.
Or whatever you know what I mean.
And so for me, and the mantises, it's ghost mantises like I cannot keep ghost mantises alive for the life of me.
And Simon laughs at that because he's like, how, how.
Yeah.
We had our ghost mantis for a while, but it ended up being a male. So of course he ended up dying off.
Yeah, we just walked in there and it's just laying there like, and I was like, oh man.
But yeah, for us, the thing we can't keep is jungle scorpions for some other reason, like I started trying to keep a few scorpions and I, yeah, I cannot keep a jungle scorpion alive or nothing.
I don't know what it is.
I just, it's crazy. And I try, I try so hard. I'm like, oh, this one's going to make it.
And go ahead, Simon. I'm sorry, hon.
That's so genius.
I think the last, the last, the last one that I got that I couldn't keep was a emperor scorpion.
Okay, just trying like a basic trying to get into scorpions a little bit more.
And I just, I just could not keep them alive or anything. And then I tried it again and I had the same thing happen. And I don't know if it's something to do with like maybe I'm putting too much community in there.
So I tried to put it less and then it's still just cropped over.
No, it's just like, I don't, I don't know what I'm doing wrong here. So I just, I just stopped. I was like, I'm not going to keep killing animals.
You know, right? Yeah, I get it. I get it.
Also, for me, I have a tarantula species that I have never been able to keep successfully and that would be the serial cosmos elegans.
So the, the one everybody loves, you know, the tarantula with the little heart, but the dwarf species.
I'll show you what lights a layer.
Yeah, right.
We've got a very similar species.
They're talking about the, that's the let's see, is it?
Yeah, I can't tell us the first name for that one, but the sea let's see, they look super similar to them. Yeah, they do.
And we actually went back and forth on what we wanted to buy and we went and purchased them because there was like three of them that looked really similar.
And we just had to pick the let's see.
But yeah, I mean, they've been doing really well.
Yeah, I love my serial cosmos. Leetzi. I have one and I'm fairly certain it's a female.
It's, it's definitely showing more female attributes.
But awesome, awesome little tarantula. And I haven't had any trouble with her at all.
So I don't know what it is about the elegans.
The males, the males in that species are kind of crazy. They just, they're so fast and all they want to do is run like anytime I open up the cage and like, hey little buddy, would you like something to eat?
He's just doing laps. Just going crazy. I'm like, oh, whoa, calm down.
That's funny.
The one species we've been super unlucky with for tarantulas is the Tobob Starburst baboon.
Really?
Yeah, no, it's like we've ordered like 10 of them at this point.
We've got three, I think.
H-Mack or the H-Mack. Yeah.
Is it Heterole Thaley or is it Histocraties?
Meculata.
She does a lot better with that. I barely speak English.
I think it's the Histocraties. I could be wrong on that so don't quote me, but.
Right, me too.
I think we're going to have to wait for whatever reason, whenever we like order those from a company or anything like that, because we've been trying to start a breeding program with them.
Anytime we order them, like three of them arrive dead, one of them will just kill all of them.
So they all die within like a week of us getting them.
And I don't know why.
But I think that's something with baboon tarantulas here in Denver is that if it does get too cold and they aren't, like, if they're not warm enough or insulated enough and stuff, they'll just perish.
They'll just die.
Well, it's the same, even the boogaloo that we have. We keep all of our tarantulas in a greenhouse.
Oh yeah.
And then we keep a couple of live plants to give them some like fresh oxygen and stuff like that. Yeah. And they're like one of the only issues that we really truly struggle to keep alive.
And it's so interesting here in Colorado. I mean, we're a higher desert. You know, we actually want our snow melts. We have something called pre evaporation happen.
We're like 30 in the snow.
We're like, we're actually just evaporate before it becomes water. And that's how dry can get here. So I mean, here we find it easier because if you put, if you have a greenhouse, you can actually control the humidity inside of there, like, especially for, you know, you're more water dependent species.
Oh yeah, they do they thrive inside of there because we were having some issues with some of them were like, it'd be a really rough mold form.
You know, and like no matter what you do, it's just, it's hard for them because they're just used, you know, where they come from, it's like 80% humidity.
Oh yeah, right. Right. The greenhouse. We definitely made life a lot easier.
Awesome. Awesome. I like that. So Simon, what are you okay? Like I just saw you spit something out or something. Are you okay?
No, I didn't actually know it was the mantis. It was, it was the way it came from it just caught up with my neck. It was spelt it on my neck. It's like, hello friend.
I just wanted to say hi. So yeah, it surprised me.
Oh my goodness. I didn't even see the mantis. That was funny. I just saw you like.
I thought you were trying to do like a magic trick because it looks like you were like pulling it out of your mouth or something.
Okay, so since we were talking about species specific stuff, do you guys have a favorite species? And if you do, what is it?
I'm really getting fond of the Anvilphora. They are awesome. Like keeping it communal with those guys. That is awesome.
It is really cool. Like I recommend if you're, if anybody's really into the hobby, get a communal of Anvilphora. It is so much fun.
Now that's something that I definitely want to do. I actually have three, if they're not, I have one that's like, I'm pretty sure she's mature finally.
Another one who I'm just not sure of, but they're getting there, if you will. And then I have a mature male who has been kicking for like a year and a half.
And so I have these three adults obviously, and I really want to set up a communal. I think that would be really cool.
I just need to get me, you know, a good size, like 10 gallon or whatever.
And all that stuff. Yeah, you got to start them in a communal when they're, when they're still slings.
Oh, really? So I could put slings in with the adults. They would just eat each other.
I wouldn't recommend it. I wouldn't try that. So we actually put a male, because we went to our normal place that we go to get crickets and stuff.
We actually put a male into our communal because there's a lot of females in our communal that we have there.
Like he never, like, never actually went into their burrows, like their little, you know how they make the intricate little web poles and stuff.
Right. Yeah, he never actually went into the burrows with them.
And I think it was because the females didn't let him in there, you know, because they were like, you know, no, you stay out.
Like you're not, you're not part of the family kind of thing.
And because there was another male in there. But I mean, when you've got like an established tarantula, they have a time like actually joining a community then.
Because they'll try and claim their territory and everything like that. And they'll just end up fighting over space.
And you do it when they're young. They're actually a lot of tarantulas will stay together for a short time when they're young, even if they're not a communal species.
And they sort of like fend for themselves a little bit within that. But the one thing that's like really different about the MF or is that they will genuinely hunt together.
So when they're when they're small, you can actually give them prey items that are larger when they're together.
So but I wouldn't recommend trying to start a communal after you've already had them separate.
Okay.
And whenever you start the communal, you actually want to put them in something that almost seems like it's too small for them to get used to being on top of each other.
You want them to get used to touching one another.
You know, okay, that makes sense. Absolutely.
And then because a lot of people they'll put them in too big of a cage, but then they can actually claim territory within the cage.
Right.
Or to actually, you know, habitat together. So people like, oh, you can't keep them communally.
Most of the time it's because they're giving them too much room and they never have to get used to touching one another and being next to one another.
Okay. So that makes a lot of sense. I appreciate all that. Thank you guys.
So do you have a favorite species to breed?
So so far, I think the Let's see, we're awesome to breed. They were just so nice about it.
Actually on our TikTok, you can actually see the male. He comes up and just kind of gives us a little tipy taps of love.
And the female is so receptive of it, you know, and it was it was awesome. I said that they're awesome to bring their easy to breed.
I think the dork species in general a little bit more relaxed, you know, in just my opinion, I don't know, I guess everybody has their own opinions.
I mean, I would agree with that. I like the dwarf species. Like they can be kind of flighty, but for the most part, they're they're pretty chill.
Like back, like you could just sit there and stare at them for whatever and they'll just kind of hang, you know, and they're not as flighty, you know, it can be.
But I like I noticed a lot of them, like especially with the, um, oh, the golds that we got.
So they say those are another good one. Yeah, I recognize the, um, the Neohullotheneincy.
Yeah, I was trying to think of how to say that first word. I always just say NNC.
Yeah, I struggle just talking like I don't know. When I was growing up, I had like dyslexia and stuff.
So I struggled with English when I was growing up.
And I just struggled just talking in general a little while and trying to say some really crazy long names.
I'm going to let her handle that.
That's okay.
Like it's a struggle to say, but, um, those guys were actually super easy to breed.
There are another species that will cohabitate together.
Okay.
So like we put our male in with a female.
At some point, he had gone in and got her and then she just like wept herself up.
And we came back with a week later, he was still alive, we find well and took him out and there's no issues with that.
So they were like the easiest ones of all of them.
Nice.
The, um, the sea let's see the female did try to eat the male, but we managed to save him.
So there's that.
But I mean, we haven't bred a whole lot of tarantulas.
And a lot of the other ones that we've done have been arboreal.
Okay.
So they're much more flighty, a lot faster than oh yeah, ground dwellers.
So, well, the, we also bred OBT.
We didn't breed OBT as we said, we said, yeah, he got messed up.
Our female was not having any of that.
She was just, oh, I was like, whoa, poor dude.
We have two females for the orange, red, blue and tarantula.
Okay.
Um, one of them is super relaxed, really nice.
Like she cohabitated with a male for like two weeks.
Wow.
Totally thought the male would be dead and he was working on him well.
We put that same male in with another female and she ate him within like 15 seconds.
Yeah.
She was just on top of them.
Yeah.
It was crazy.
So, wow.
Wow.
That's spectacular though.
That sounds pretty awesome.
Like amazing tarantula behavior.
Right.
It's wild how different they can get between individuals.
So, I actually had that female.
No, no, it's not.
Yeah.
I think it is that female was actually on the side of my face one time.
That was a scary moment for me because I mean, you know,
the OVTs, they kind of get a reputation, you know,
they get a rep.
Yeah.
That was a moment.
I honestly don't feel like they really deserve their reputation because if you provide them
what they need, like, you know, a deep enough substrate, plenty of things to anchor upon,
you know, for their webbing and whatnot, then they're not as spicy as everybody likes
to think.
And, you know, they're just flighty.
They're flighty.
Well, we have one.
I kind of feel like tarantulas are kind of like people in some aspects.
They are.
Some people are just mean, some tarantulas are just mean.
Yeah.
Like that's kind of how I feel about that because one of our OVTs.
I agree.
They definitely have like their own, you know, kind of quirky personality.
Sometimes they're just spicy for no reason, no good reason, you know.
Yeah.
Because one of our females, like you open that up, the one that attacked the male right
there, she comes out and she's just threat posturing just ready for it.
Oh, man.
Just raising legs and talking legs and things like just like, yeah, try me.
Yeah.
She'll actually like throw herself on her back really dramatically.
And it's funny because we'll open it up to go feed her show like throw herself on the
back, be really upset, and then we'll like, prick it in her mouth and she'll grab it
and be like, all right, I guess we're cool and walk away, you know.
Yeah.
I'm such drama queens.
I do love how dramatic they are.
Some of them, yeah.
But the OVTs, I would say are more dramatic than anything.
I mean, I don't know.
Yeah, I would totally agree to that.
We got us to play with bird eaters not too long ago.
I was kind of surprised how slow moving and chill they are.
I had a salmon pink and I was kind of like, I bet they're going to be like the same,
you know, really fast and stuff like that.
No, those little eyes are really slow moving actually.
They're really, they're pretty cool.
I mean, it may have also been a little bit because wherever we bought those from, they
clearly did not take care of them.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah.
When we got those glide bird eaters, they're like five inches or so.
Yeah, five or six, something like that.
They were super skinny and it was clear that they were dehydrated because we put them into
a new enclosure and immediately they started drinking water.
Wow.
They read their face in the water for like a good, like, it was like five minutes that
one of them drank.
Well, you know what's ranch was thirsty when they do that.
Oh, yeah, for sure.
For sure.
I mean, they're super fat now and one of them actually gets molded.
Yeah, so, but so they're happy now.
They have a good home now, but it was, it was kind of sad to see them like that though.
Yeah, I can imagine.
I kind of noticed that a lot too.
Like whenever people have tarantulas, like, I don't know if you notice at the expo, whenever
we have our tarantulas, we have them in enclosures with dirt and little things for them to anchor
onto and we try to get a little something to kind of keep them happy.
Of course.
A lot of people that just go over there and their tarantulas just, just dirt.
Yeah.
Yeah, I have, I have noticed that at some expos that, you know, that there's occasionally
breeders that just, it's like they don't really care about the animal.
They're just caring about like the money that they make from it.
And that that's like a dark underbelly of our hobby, I guess, right?
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Yeah, it's almost just want to buy them all.
She's like, I'll see you better, you know, but yeah, definitely.
Yeah, then yeah, then there you are with, you know, 70, 80, 100 tarantulas.
Right.
So Simon, I know that you go to the invert expos there in the UK.
They're super lucky because they get, they get to go to invert shows that where it's
all just invertebrates, so mantises, all the, all the nine, no reptiles.
So when you go to the invert shows, do you see, is that something that occurs in the UK as well?
Like, do you see breeders that are just kind of like, what are you doing to these animals?
Or is that just a weird thing that the States goes there?
Well, there's one tomorrow about the show.
Okay.
Yeah, etymology show tomorrow.
So that's again, we'll just be books basically.
I have seen one or two that could do better, but all the whole, most people speak them.
I mean, I agree.
I just see everything.
A lot of, you know, you can just keep them.
If you go where Germany or somewhere like that, you just keep them in the pots.
Sure.
That's two-inches pots, nothing in them.
Sheet of tissue paper and a lollipop stick.
And that's the, that's the lot where you see all mine are all green.
Yeah.
And they've all got some kind of back and I'm from to climb up is, you know, there's something and like these I take them out as well.
And if I'm doing something, you know, I will grab a random bounces for a moment and let him out and let him move to around.
That's, that's, I think that's very fairly common across board that the, the, over in the UK, people keep them.
Better.
If you like, it's not just the box of dirt is a lot of bioactive is a big thing.
They really, I mean, you guys, you kind of have it lucky when it comes to the bioactive because you could just go out into your yard and grab some dirt, throw that in there and that's good.
I don't know April and Sam, if you guys know, but pesticides are actually banned in the UK.
They, they don't have to worry about having like contaminated soil and stuff.
We definitely have to worry about that.
Right.
Yeah.
It might be wrong anyway, your substrates, I mean, you're still, you're still fighting and still fighting the compost and the most, you know, you do it yourself.
I mean, that's like I say, that's one basically out in the garden.
Yeah.
She's, she's got an amelior in there.
Yeah.
They're all very similar to that.
They're all, you know, the moths and the hides and the, the hides are all probable.
It's not called parking.
Yeah.
If you came to an expo here in the States, I think you would be hard press to find the one who sold something that looked like that with an amelior.
Typically, a lot of people will sell the animals separate from the enclosure.
And then, you know, they get that extra couple of dollars out of you.
And I mean a couple of dollars, probably like 30 to $60 depending on what you're buying.
But I mean, like, that's, that's just kind of how it goes here. Like we don't, a lot of, a lot of people don't seem to expect to sell a hut like an enclosure with the animal at the same price.
You know what I mean?
Right.
Well, you wouldn't get that.
I mean, if I had some of the mantis mipo and sell it in a pot, would have that ear.
I mean, it's due for your enclosure.
But what I'm saying is it's not the way I choose them.
Right.
And I think that's the way to behave with me.
Oh my gosh.
That pot will simply be go for sales.
That's, you know, it goes in the pot for sales.
There you go.
There it is.
Now put it in your way.
Right.
Set up.
Right.
It's a transport point.
You can't transport the money.
So on that, we actually, we purchased our feather like baboon.
Uh huh.
Yeah.
We bought her, she has like one of the fifth tarantula that we purchased.
Not a great starter tarantula would not recommend.
But we bought her because she was, she was fully grown.
So she's got six inches, like, like that.
Wow.
In a container about like that.
And it was like that tall, tiny little patch of dirt.
Like it didn't even cover the whole ground.
Right.
And then we had to put it in there long enough where she had fully webbed it
down.
So it was like a complete mat all the way around the enclosure.
So she had been in there for a fairly significant amount of time.
Because tarantulas, they typically won't web until they're happy.
Well, this is just my life.
So like we kind of anticipate or speculate.
That she had been going from XBO to XBO and had never actually been given a
home.
Yeah.
She was mean to her.
She's happy now though.
I mean, I try not to mess with her too much because I definitely know she,
you know, she can be spicy.
Yeah.
But she's definitely a lot happier now.
She has this really tall enclosure that we gave her and she's got this little
hide a hole inside of there.
Nice.
She's, she's happy now.
She's probably, probably a little less spicy.
Yeah.
I mean, you can, you can open her enclosure.
She can actually like reach around in there and do some cleanup and everything
like that.
She won't even actually do anything now.
When we got her, she fought for that dirt.
She fought for it.
Yeah.
Like she was, she was, you know, rearing up.
She was stridulating, which is not really common.
Like you really have to bother her.
You really have to.
Yeah.
Absolutely.
They have to be pretty mad to stridulate.
Yeah.
You would not give up her dirt.
You would not give up having to slide her dirt into her new enclosure.
Wow.
And yeah, she was super unhappy.
But I mean, it kind of goes to show if you actually take care of them well and you
don't like constantly harass them, any tarantula could be a good tarantula.
Oh yeah.
Absolutely.
I mean,
I was going to say that's one cool thing I think about with how we set up ours is
those containers that we have, I mean, the tarantulas are actually happy inside
those little homes that we have.
I agree.
I mean, the cute little deli cup that I got the Selmopis Arminia in that you, you know,
you guys gave to me, like has been wonderful.
And to be honest, she's, she's still in it only because she was definitely very happy
like she felt secure in there.
I know a secure tarantula, especially of that species is one that you're really not going
to see very often just because, you know, they have that photosensitivity and all that.
So she's really happy in what you provided for her.
And so actually she's getting to a point now where I'm like, okay, it's probably time
to move her into a little bit bigger of one.
But no, I agree with you.
You guys have done a really great job of, of providing what they need, even in little
deli, you know, Dixie Cubs and stuff.
I'm, I'm, I'm happy about that.
You guys are awesome.
And I think that, you know, we need more breeders like, like you guys who take that extra measure
because, you know, when you see other breeders that, you know, you can tell if they don't
care about their animals or if it's just, you know, money for them or whatever, you know,
you can tell the difference between a breeder who's like, yeah, I, you know, this is a business,
but I still care about this animal.
You know, it goes a long way.
Absolutely.
I don't think either one of us signed up for this thinking would make a million dollars.
Right.
I mean, from the beginning, we've been more talking about the conservation side of it as
opposed to the actual like business side of it.
That's for, I am, I'm, I'm really big into the conservation side of things.
I, I agree with you.
I do definitely think, you know, the hobby has got kind of its high points and low points,
but one of the best things that we could do is to, to continue with that conservation efforts.
So like for, I don't know if you're aware, but the butterfly pavilion, actually they do
a breeding program where they, they are all about conservation as well.
So they breed the butterflies that they have in house, obviously, but they also breed tarantulas.
And, and somebody made mention of that to us.
Heather looking for a male rose hair and oh yeah.
And then we, we had bought our female and we're like, okay, we're going to wait.
Yeah, we're going to read our female.
And then we're going to go and offer that to the butterfly pavilion because I'm after you
breed them.
It's not like you just go and be like, oh, we're going to breed it again, you know, and
then that's what we're making it.
Not great.
So not great.
Yeah.
And they, you know, I was there in October and I saw that they had a mature male Gramastola
polka.
And I mean, that's another species that like, it's hard to find slings of them sometimes
just because they do grow so slowly and you have to wait for males, all that stuff.
And yeah, I saw the mature male and I was like, they probably already bred him, but I could
name at least four people that would make a really good use of this guy.
Right.
Okay.
So speaking of like species specific, do you guys have a dream species?
Like, is there a dream species of tarantula that you just, you are, you know, one day you
want to breed that or maybe you don't breed it now or whatever?
What are your thoughts?
I mean, to be fair, we have a lot of what we're actually looking for.
We've got a lavender tarantula.
We've got the Brazilian jewels.
We've got the post-aetherian metallica.
Cool.
I think we would like some more post-aetherias because we've only got two species.
Yeah.
Okay.
We've got the regalus and the metallica.
Yeah.
And we've actually got like three metallicas, one female, two males.
And then our regalus, I mean, we thought for the longest time as a female, because she's
like, she was a good, you know, five and a half inches, which should be beyond, well,
but that should be like well beyond sub adult, right?
Yes.
So she's about yay-bae now.
Okay.
Six and a half-ish, maybe seven inches.
And just came out as male like a week ago.
And I was like, what happened?
You looked so female for so long.
And now all of a sudden you're a male?
Like she.
Right.
And typically they say when you're breeding tarantulas, two thirds of the size of like
a full adult is when they should be like breeding ready, I guess.
Oh, yeah.
I didn't know that.
Yeah.
75% of their full size.
Yeah.
Sorry.
Yeah.
75%.
So you would think that a six and a half inch tarantula would have like sexed after
earlier.
Yeah.
Because they only get like seven, seven to nine inches, I think.
And the males are typically smaller than that.
Right.
So it was like, just all of a sudden out of nowhere, suddenly we had a male and I was
like, huh, what a trip.
What a trip.
Yeah.
I guess now we got to look for a female of those.
Yeah.
Definitely.
I can't tell which my regal is.
Oh, go ahead.
Simon.
I'm sorry.
Do you not do like checking them all to see where it is before I.
We do.
We're not like great or a hundred percent at it.
So we'll get it wrong occasionally.
When they fully mature, that's like the easiest way to tell whether it's male or female.
The post-its areas, they don't really have a whole lot of difference in their colorations.
So they're not, I would say they're wholly sexually dimorphic.
Yeah.
The metallocas are.
Yeah.
The males are a lot more blue and the females tend to kind of get a little more black as
they get older.
Yeah.
Well, what I'm saying is it's a bit more subtle than like say the solopias.
Oh, sure.
They're drastically different.
You know what I mean?
Right.
So I mean, we'll look at it.
We'll give it our best guess.
I actually work for a microscope company so I can actually look at them under a surgical
microscope.
That's cool.
Even still, it doesn't help when they like shred their molds or something like that,
or you rip it apart when you're taking it out of the cage.
So it just depends on how they bolt and if we get a complete and whole mold really.
Yeah.
If we actually get a whole mold, I like to put it in water and just let it soak for a
bit and then try to see if I can see something about that.
And just sometimes it's just hard to tell to you.
I mean, it's just, you know, you think you know what you're doing sometimes, then you
go and you do it.
And then also it turns out to be the opposite.
Right.
Well, and that's one thing I love about our hobbies that we're just always learning.
And I mean, that's kind of the point of our podcast here as well is like, we're just trying
to learn and keep learning, obviously, but also making that information accessible for
people, you know, through our shared experiences.
I think that's gold.
Yeah.
Well, and the other half of that is, I'd say like 90% of the time, I'll look at it and
think one thing, he'll look at it, think the other thing, and then we're just in disagreement
and we make a bet and throw it to the wind, you know?
Yeah.
So, yeah.
So, what, so I'm sorry, I'm totally going to change the topic.
But I want to know what goals do you have for eight-legged adventures in the future?
I mean, really, a lot of our goals are about conservation.
Yeah, it would be really cool.
We were hoping to maybe if we can get bigger, maybe at some point in time, we can actually
get in contact with people like in India, you know, where the pokeys are from and maybe
see if we could pull some of our egg sacks and actually see if we might be able to send
them to them.
Yeah.
And then reintroduce them.
I don't know how easy it's going to be to actually find somebody who's willing to do
that kind of thing.
I, you know, I think for that the best way to go about doing that would probably be through
the zoological societies.
I can see that.
Yeah, like getting in touch with like the Denver Zoo and just kind of talking to them
about that, just seeing how that goes.
And I do think the zoological societies would probably be the best way to go about that
because they're, boo, excuse me, that's essentially what a good zoo does.
Right.
Is, you know, they keep these rare species and stuff.
And then of course they educate public about them.
But then on top of that, they are doing, you know, breeding programs where they're trying
to reintroduce species into the wild where they came from.
Right.
I don't know if you guys.
That's going to be down the road though.
I mean, we're not quite a big scale yet to, you know, be able to do all that.
But eventually.
You will be.
Yeah, we're working on it.
But eventually that's, that would be like the end goal for us is to be able to try to
help them out.
And then also like, April kind of has this idea about like, we ever could have like a store
front.
We could actually like do a thing where people can like come in and like learn about them.
And then, you know, like, as opposed to seeing them as scary tarantulas, you know, maybe
people would actually see them in a different light.
They're a little bit more educated about it.
Right.
Yeah.
Like that.
If we ever get to that would be kind of cool.
Yeah.
And like, we also kind of want to help bring down the price of some of the tarantulas that
are out there because people charge a lot of money.
And what ends up happening is then people who are importing for a lot less can undercut
the people who are breeding here.
Yeah.
We don't have like our prices are super reasonable.
When we actually get like our Mexican half and half sprayed in our post theory metallica's
we're not going to charge very much for them because we would rather somebody purchase
from somebody who's actually breeding as opposed to somebody who's importing and importing is
actually like they can sell it for a less price than people who are breeding or I guess
more of a greed factor where people choose to sell it for more when they breed because
the cost of taking care of these animals is really not that high.
Well, I also think that a lot of times that it's the time aspect.
So they're considering like, okay, I captive bred this bee's ease, but how much time did
they put into it?
And so they're kind of factoring that also into that.
I mean, if you want to say that then anything that was captive bred should be more like
way more expensive.
You know what I mean?
I agree.
I mean, I do think that like pricing is is out there and it's kind of weird like the initial
the initial purchase is probably the worst, you know, because after that, like you said
it, they're they're generally pretty easy to take care of.
I mean, you don't need like these fancy enclosures.
You know what I mean?
Like you could get a big I get these cheesy puff.
Those big cheesy puffins clean them out real good and drill a bunch of holes for air and
stuff.
Those those are amazing enclosures for fissorials and arboreals, you know,
the dollar tree actually has really good inclusions in their tupperware and stuff like that.
Oh, yeah.
The dollar and you get like five or six enclosures and it's like, right?
Yeah.
So I mean, there's definitely ways to like mitigate that cost essentially.
But yeah, I don't know.
I mean, there's it's a huge topic, you know, it's a it's a pretty big controversial topic
in the hobby and in our community, the captive bread versus wild caught.
I I agree with you guys.
I definitely don't support wild caught.
I mean, I think that occasional wild caught specimen being introduced into the hobby is
good for bio like for that diversity in the bloodlines and keeping the bloodlines kind
of fresh.
And, you know, that way we're not breeding cousins all the time.
You know, but there's there's a limit to it.
There's yeah, because see, we can't keep taking them from the wild because then they're just
going to disappear.
Well, you know, they are.
Yeah, they never get put back either.
That's right.
Sort of problem.
I mean, yeah, I would hazard a guess that almost nobody is sending those animals back
over.
I mean, there may be a few like the zoological societies, but nobody who's like sitting down
and breeding a ton of different species is really going to send them back because they're
making money off of it right now.
Yeah, honestly.
Right.
I mean, we had sort of talked about having like a cap on how much we would actually charge
for an animal.
And that's just because we want people to have the availability to purchase those animals
and still get something that is going to be, you know, I guess a little more endangered,
but that way it's going to dissuade them from purchasing from people who are bringing them
in from overseas.
So then, one day they'll just stop doing it all together.
Because it's not lucrative anymore.
Right.
Yeah.
That's the hope one day.
And I mean, I'm pretty sure you guys can, you know, also say from your parts, you guys
probably try to buy a captive bred and stuff, you know.
Always.
Yeah.
So if everybody does their part, you know, it kind of, it also helps.
I think that's a huge part of it.
It's just informing people, you know, hey, don't buy something that's not captive bred,
you know, and just trying to get that information out and get that knowledge out to people who,
especially like people who are new into the hobby, who might not understand necessarily
quite yet.
Well, no, I totally, I totally agree.
I feel like it just doesn't make sense to buy a wild caught because pretty much every
species that's already established in the hobby and here, you can find that species captive
bred like no matter what, no matter where you are, no matter where you live, you know,
you can find that species captive bred.
There's no need to purchase a wild caught.
And you know, if you're doing that, then you're just, you know, you're burning down
the rainforest.
Yeah.
I mean, the unfortunate thing is that some people, like they don't even tell you whether
they're wild caught or captive bred.
They'll just put it on their website or whatever.
Right.
But then, I mean, like you can't blame the consumer for not knowing in that situation.
But I mean, you can kind of fish it out though.
I mean, obviously Tom Patterson, he's captive breeding, you know, fear not tarantulas.
They're not, you know, spider shop.
They're captive breeding as well.
We have a really great question from, from one of our audience members here says, how
can you tell if a person at an exotic show is using wild caught spiders are their signs?
Yeah.
So for one, you can ask them.
Right.
So, if someone who's breeding will know exactly what they've bred.
Yes.
I mean, the other thing is if it's a large animal, like if it's over three inches, they
will only want like $25 or $30 for it.
It's likely wild caught.
Wild caught.
Yeah.
The price of it really will tell you a lot about how they've cared for that animal or
how long they've cared for it.
If, typically in the hobby, if you care for something longer, you can charge more for
it.
So a three inch juvenile tarantula, you could charge sometimes triple the price.
So if somebody's selling a slaying and a three inch tarantula at the same price, it's pretty
clear to me at least that they've likely not raised that animal.
And it's a fair possibility that it is wild caught.
I know right now, the Goliaths and the pink toes are pretty common in being wild caught
and brought in.
Yeah.
That is, yeah.
And I think that also contributed into the kind of the mess that the aviculary aviculary
is in right now.
Because now, you know, we're trying to figure out is this an M1 or an M6?
We don't know.
I don't even know.
I honestly, we kind of have actually washed our hands of the avicular.
The avicular is just because it's so, there's so much there.
You know, I mean, yeah, it's not clear either.
Yeah.
What I want to find to be interesting is like people will find something with this like
color variation.
And the scientific community will give it a new genus, everything like that.
They might put it with something that similar.
It's a high possibility.
It won't.
And then what will end up happening is it'll get reclassified six times and then eventually
settle to where it is now.
So that's what happened with the carabinoversicolor.
They actually used to use the pink and the avicular, a versicolor, I believe, and they've
changed the genus so many times on them.
And now it's like, well, what, where, where are we now?
Because it's a pink toe, but it's not a pink toe.
It's just a weird thing.
Like this, I saw one, I don't remember what it's called.
It was like a chicken spider or something like that.
Oh, yeah.
The one in Mexico.
Yeah.
Les Boyos, something or something like that.
Yeah.
So why is this thing so expensive?
When you look at it.
Well, it's really rare, according to people.
You know, I'm not really sure, but it's probably so expensive because it's really rare or it's
really endangered.
And it probably is a typical New World, Mexico tarantula, and it takes five years to be on
any side.
Maybe.
The thing that is that I think just recently it was scientifically classified, and I'm
willing to bet that it will be reclassified multiple times and end up not being this quote
unquote, mystical chicken spider.
Yeah.
It's a very different color variation of something else.
Right.
It's possible.
I mean, that's kind of what happened with like the painful BDS, like SB, Nascara, and
Cascadia and everything like that.
Yeah.
They all look very similar, and I would not be surprised if eventually they all get brought
into the same genus because it's just a locale difference is how they were named.
Yep.
So.
Well, April and Sam and Simon, we've reached our shameless plug portion of our show.
That's our hour.
We did good.
You guys did wonderful.
I'm glad that we got a chance to talk with you and really get to hear all about eight
Laked Adventures and kind of where you guys came from and where you're going.
So at this point, do you have anything that you want to shamelessly plug?
Yes.
So right here, this is if you put it's dot com at the end of this, that'll be our website.
And you guys can go check it out.
Yeah.
Absolutely.
Everybody go visit eight Laked Adventures dot com.
These guys are really cool.
If you obviously live in the Colorado area, they go to, I see you guys at pretty much
every show that I go to, so they are fantastic, wonderful people.
Absolutely love seeing you guys at the show for sure.
So check out their website.
Order some spiders for them to help a small business get bigger.
Thank you guys so much for having us and whoever's listening.
Thank you guys for taking the time to listen to us talk today.
It's definitely appreciated.
So.
Yeah.
We're so thrilled.
Simon, do you have any shameless plugs?
No, Simon's used to go find my month.
Rock on.
Try to make this plus my channel, find, like and subscribe to this one.
Awesome.
All right.
I, of course, am triage Leah.
So check out my channel and like and subscribe to InvertoCast because we are just awesome
like that.
Next week, we have a really cool guest coming up.
I don't want to spoil it, so you guys are going to have to pay attention to the Facebook
and whatnot.
So, but in any case, thank you again so much.
Like and adventure is April and Sam.
You guys are fantastic.
I absolutely loved having you on the show.
I feel like it went really, really well.
You guys are so much fun to talk to you and hopefully we can keep getting your name out
there and send some business your way because we need more breeders like you guys who are,
you know, you care about your animals and you're all about that conservation.
So rock on.
We're doing our best.
Thank you guys so much.
Good governance.
Yeah.
Simon, what was that?
I do get a lot of questions every day.
Okay.
Over 200 people messaging in every single day.
The silver mile of America and I'll ask me like where you could buy fibers and whatnot
and all sorts of things.
So yeah, I've got another one on my list now.
I can post them to you.
So go on.
Well, thank you.
Appreciate it.
Yeah.
That's fantastic.
Okay.
Well, thank you everybody for watching.
That is it for us.
We will see everybody next week again.
Thank you so much.
We'll see you guys.
Thanks.