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A guide to keeping the brazilian jewel tarantula.

It’s often easy to forget when you’ve been keeping jumping spiders for a while that some of the very basic and what a seasoned keeper would think of as obvious facts and information about them aren’t always so obvious to brand new keepers. I’ve compiled some of the most frequently asked questions, topics, facts, and funky quirks about jumping spiders that you may or may not already know. I plan to go into more detail for most of these topics eventually and dedicate a whole write-up to each one, but for now, these are just quick and basic answers to get them out there and make you aware of them if you are totally new to the wonderful world of jumping spiders. If you have a question, want to know more about a certain topic, or if you've currently got jumping spiders and remember a vital piece of information from when you were first starting out and wish someone had explained in more detail, then please get in touch as I’d love to add it to this article for others to read and learn from, and remember no question, topic or assumption is too silly! We were all new to jumping spiders or a pet at one point in our lives and our care of animals only gets better with knowledge, asking questions, and of course, the process of actually owning one, so never stop asking questions even if they’re just to yourself. Size Jumping spiders come in a vast range of sizes depending on things like species, diet, genetics, and of course their age. There can also be some confusion depending on whether the size measured is just the body, or includes their leg span as well, and you’ll find different countries and different breeders use different methods. For the sake of this article, I’ll use the measurement which includes their leg span. The largest of the jumping spiders comes from the Hyllus genus and can reach up to 4cm in some cases, with the smallest species of jumping spider being as tiny as just a millimeter. The most commonly bred jumping spider here in the UK is the Phidippus Regius, and its average size is around 15mm depending on which locale it is. Females are usually slightly larger than their male counterparts as they’re a little chunkier in the butt, with the males being more athletically built and having slightly longer legs at the front. Lifespan The lifespan of jumping spiders is something that sadly will never be long enough for their owners, and some people are even put off by the fact they won’t get to spend a long time with their spider friend like they would a dog or cat. Males tend to mature faster than females with a typical lifespan documented to be between 18 months to 2 years, but we are actually starting to see more and more spiders living past that average as our knowledge and care of them get better in captivity and we're are able to extend their lives a little. I currently have males and females that are over 2 years old, and although they’re classed as very elderly they’re still active and eating well with no signs of them struggling or having a poor quality of life. The key is to not overfeed them as this speeds up their growth and shortens the time between moults, which in turn makes them mature faster. Overfeeding them is often done with no ill intent of their owner, they just assume their spider is hungry every couple of days when in reality these spiders can go weeks without food. Arboreal Jumping spiders are arboreal, meaning they prefer life off the ground and up in higher places like trees and buildings. Living up high gives them a great vantage point for hunting their food and launching a sneak attack and it means they’re out of reach from many ground-level predators that would happily snack on a jumping spider. Living higher up allows them to spot those predators that are able to reach them long before they get too close for comfort. Diurnal Like us, jumping spiders are diurnal which means they’re awake during daylight hours and they sleep at night. This is why we advise using a bright LED lamp over their enclosure for 12 hours a day to mimic the natural light they would get from living out in the wild in their country of origin. Much like us, they require daylight to see, to help stimulate their bodies and minds to get out of bed in the morning, hunt for food, and just go about their daily spider duties. Sexually dimorphic Jumping spiders are mostly sexually dimorphic, meaning that once mature, males look different from females in colour, often in size, as well as some differences in their body shape and parts. Some species can be sexed as early as L5 if you know what to look for, but there are also some spiders that love to keep us guessing right until the very end, and even then, some at first glance can appear as the opposite sex. Male vs Female, what are their care differences? There aren’t any really unless you’re wanting to breed them. The only difference is more to do with their behaviour and if your female is laying an egg-sac(fertile or not), but ultimately as just companion pets, their care parameters are the same. I will do an article on their behavioural differences soon as it can be an interesting topic with lengthy answers when digging super deep into it. Just how jumpy are they? Despite them being able to jump around 50 times the distance relative to their size, when inside their captive habitats they actually don’t “jump” around it all that much and instead choose to scuttle around the walls of their enclosure. They will pounce on their prey though if need be at feeding time, and given enough room outside their enclosure they will try to jump from one thing to another if it looks within their reach. I often allow the spiders that I handle to jump from one hand to another, or I put them on one of my big monstera plants which they seem to enjoy using as a jungle gym of sorts and hop about from leaf to leaf, abseil by their butts to leaves lower down before jumping their way up to the top again, and even sometimes launch onto me just to give me some added heart palpitations and see how fast my “catch me” reflexes are. Females lay eggs - even if they haven’t had a boyfriend! Female spiders once sexually mature may lay eggs even if they’ve never had a special man in their life 😉 This is actually something I didn’t know myself until after getting into keeping jumpers as it wasn’t something that was mentioned in the Google care research I found, and my first spiders were a male, and a female who never actually laid any eggs at all. If you have a female spider and you know for sure that she’s never been paired with a male then don’t panic as the eggs will be infertile. She will either eat or abandon them within a couple of weeks of laying them and go back to being her usual self. Some other cool facts about this topic include that females are able to store sperm for up to one year after mating, and also that just one pairing with a male can result in up to 10 fertile egg-sacs!😅 Hunters Jumping spiders are incredible hunters and they actually have a completely different method of catching their food from other true spiders and tarantulas. The usual method for other true spiders is to build a web out in the open, then sit and wait until something comes along and either gets stuck in that web as it’s flying past, or they touch the web as they crawl past it causing vibrations, and alerting the spider to the presence of a potential meal. Tarantulas also use a similar approach as they also tend to lay in wait for the prey to come to them before grabbing it and dragging it back to its burrow, but they web the floor surface around their burrow as they aren't able to climb using just one strand of their silk as true spiders do. This type of catching their food requires a lot of patience on the spider's part meaning they will go weeks without food while waiting for something to come their way, and it’s not very common for them to leave their burrow to go out to look for food purposely. Jumping spiders on the other hand do the opposite. They don’t use an intricate web to catch whatever may happen to be passing by, they leave their nest and actively go out to hunt down their food. Their incredible eyesight and strength mean they can spot a potential meal from a distance, stalk it, and then take down prey far larger than themselves. In the wild, they’ve been photographed having caught lizards and frogs over 4 times their size. Check out this article to see pics of them in action. It’s because of their amazing hunting abilities that I recommend not tweezer feeding a healthy jumping spider while they’re sat in their nest as it denies them the enrichment and exercise they get from seeking out the food themselves and tackling it. For creatures as intelligent as jumping spiders, there’s nothing worse than boredom and lack of enrichment for them. Eyesight Jumping spiders have amazing eyesight for a creature that small. In fact, their eyesight is only 5-10 times less than a human's eyesight. How crazy is that! They also have 8 eyes and each pair of eyes does a different job including giving the spider nearly a 360 view, meaning even if they aren’t facing you they are still watching you! The front two pairs of eyes that are also the reason these spiders look so darn cute in comparison to other spiders, give them a narrow but clear image in HD colour. The two side pair of eyes give the spider a black and white blurry image of things around and behind them. If these side pairs of eyes detect shadows and movement the spider will turn to face it and get a better look with its front pairs. Their eyesight plays a huge role in why these tiny bit mighty spiders are able to spot, stalk and hunt down their prey. This article does a far better job of explaining it than I can if you fancy delving deeper into this topic. Solitary & Cannibalistic Jumping spiders are solitary creatures and must be kept in an enclosure on their own. Putting two of them together would result in a fight to the death and one of them being eaten by the other and the possibly the death of both of them if they manage to bite each others. Unfortunately, there have been some Tiktoks and other social media posts where the spider's owners have shown multiple spiders being allowed outside of their enclosures to “mingle & play” together. Please don’t ever try this yourself as 9 times out of 10 it won’t end well. Even when mating a male and a female, it does sometimes result in the female having a munch on her man before, during, and even after he’s performed his duties. 😬 I’ve personally witnessed a spider as young as L3 eat 2 of his siblings at the same time which came as a shock because they don’t usually start to cannibalise until L4 when you need to separate them from each other and keep them in individual pots. Can they be handled? The answer to this isn’t so black and white as it actually depends on the spider believe it or not. What I will start by saying is that they don’t “like” being handled, they merely tolerate it and will become accustomed to it over time. Spider's paws (yes their feet are actually called paws, how cute!) are incredibly sensitive and just like human hands, their paws can feel things like temperature, airflow, direction, movement, and vibrations, and if some scientists are correct, they can even feel the blood pumping through our veins as well as our bioelectrical current. Basically, it’s a super weird sensation when they touch our skin! Imagine you're standing on a train platform and one comes belting past without stopping at the station. All that noise and vibration, the heat of the train engines, the warm air as its disturbed, and the wind it all creates, that’s the comparison I use for how it must feel to a jumping spider when being handled by us. Similar to how we get used to being in train stations, your jumping spider may also get used to being handled by you. I also want to mention that some spiders won’t ever get used to it and won’t tolerate being handled at all. I have a couple of such spiders which are “look but don't touch” and others that I can and do handle, but that’s absolutely their choice. One of many cool things about jumpers is that they don't NEED to be handled or have physical interactions with us to live happy healthy lives. They’re quite content in their little habitats providing all their basic care requirements are met, and they’re just as fascinating to own when only admiring them through the walls of their enclosure. Do they bite? As with all spiders, yes they can bite, but it’s pretty rare they do. It’s usually either due to a mistake and them thinking you’re food, or when they feel threatened, which they will actually give you plenty of warning about before they do feel a bite is their last resort of self-defense. They do have venom although it’s not medically significant to us, and nobody has ever died from a jumping spider bite (as far as we know. The chances of anyone having died are closer to zero, but for legal reasons, I have to say “as far as we know”). I have actually been bitten 4 times in total, 3 of which were dry bites (no venom injected) and I don’t actually class them as bites at all because of the circumstances surrounding them. In this particular incident, I was actually bitten by 3 of my spiders within minutes of each other which was the first sign that there was perhaps something else going on other than them biting me for the sake of it. I had washed my hands as I always do before handling my spiders so I’d like to think there wasn’t anything on my hands that could have caused their reaction. All 3 spiders interacted with me first and chose to come onto my hand as I was only in their enclosure doing some tank maintenance with no plans or attempts to handle them, so I know it wasn't caused by me forcing them to be handled. All the spiders very very slowly and gently just applied the lightest pressure with their chelicerae (fangs) and it felt like a tiny pair of tweezers on my hand. Once they felt the resistance of my skin they immediately stopped and went back to their own enclosure as if they were just testing my hand out and seeing if I was edible or something. There were no threat poses from them, no fast movements like they were startled or feeling they needed to defend themselves, it was all just very strange more than anything as all 3 did the same thing minutes apart. I came to the conclusion that there must have been something on my hands that either interested them or made them feel they needed to check it out further. They never broke the skin or left any marks, and they never did it again. The 4th time I was bitten was actually by accident and as I went to pop a fly into her enclosure she went to jump earlier than expected and just as I let go of the fly and it moved, she made contact and grabbed my finger where she dangled for 5 full minutes before realising I wasn’t food and let me go. Now unfortunately this wasn't a dry bite meaning she gave me a good dose of her venom given how long she dangled there by her fangs, and I can’t lie and tell you it was completely painless when it wasn’t. I do have a pretty high pain threshold and would describe the pain as a little less than a bee sting, but I have heard other people that have been bitten compare it to a full-on bee sting sort of pain, so obviously it depends on your personal pain threshold. It did also break the skin and bleed a little, and continued to sting for around 30 minutes afterward, although I’m sure some antihistamine cream would have reduced that if I had any available at the time. All in all, it hasn't put me off jumping spiders or made me scared of them or never want to handle one again, but it’s something that made me change the way I feed my spiders going forward and realise my reactions aren’t as fast as theirs are, and to keep my chubby little mitts away from spiders when feeding them. So there you have some little facts and observations to help with your decision making of if a jumping spider is the right pet for you. Don't forget to check out the rest of our blog articles for more jumper topics as well as the care sheet below for how to look after them. Victoria xx

A guide to setting up a fully bioactive habitat within your pet jumping spiders enclosure, and why its beneficial to them to reacreate their natural environment.

Fly hatching, I can hear your eye rolls from here and trust me, I roll my eyes as well every time someone brings up fly castors and how the hell do people get them to hatch, let alone rely on them as a consistent source of food for their spiders. When first trying fly casters I read a couple of tutorials online about how to successfully do it which seemed simple enough. They were pretty cheap when you consider how many casters you get for your money. They took up very little space both in caster form and once hatched, and required little to no care, unlike locusts or crickets. All in all the pros seemed to outweigh the cons, and the only thing left to do was meet my hubby’s conditions of keeping the casters inside a ziplock bag and then inside a pack-up box before he would allow them to be kept in the fridge, and to promise him there was no way they could hatch and escape to mingle and munch on our food. I’d love to tell you this is where I share my method and that everything turned out as easy as I expected it to be, but as any of you that have tried hatching casters will already probably know, it’s a hit or miss kind of thing. Some people have no issues at all, and sadly others like me end up shouting at a little pot of burrito looking turds with nothing happening for weeks on end until you finally give up and convince yourself it was obviously just a bad batch, and that trying some from a different shop will work, only to have those and the 50 other pots you subsequently purchased from every known seller in the UK also fail to hatch as well, and begs the question, how come in summer if you open your window for a millisecond you seem to gain a rowdy gang of wild flies romping around your house like it’s their stag do, but you can’t hatch one measly little fly that’s pretty much been living like a king for weeks with its own little sawdust pillow, nice and toasty warm next to your radiator with a buffet ready and waiting for it to emerge? At that point, it was me 0 - flies 8493!! You probably think I’m being dramatic, but I went through thousands trying various different methods and suppliers to have maybe one or two hatch in total. It was clear that flies weren’t going to be on my spider’s menu, and that locusts would have to be sacrificed instead. Locusts are still my top choice as feeder bugs. They start as small as hatchling size which are perfect for 5th instar and above providing they’re supervised until they have a good grip on it after takedown. They’re slower than flies so it’s a little easier for the spiders to grab them first time, and personally, I think they’re more nutritious than flies when fed on washed organic and pesticide-free fruit and vegetables. They don’t smell as bad as crickets or flies, and the spiders seem to really enjoy hunting them! I thought I was safe from having to deal with casters ever again until my first lot of babies came along. They were fed fruit flies to begin with, nice and easy, but once they needed starting on larger prey that was safe for baby spiders to tackle, the choices I had were house flies or curly wing flies which unfortunately both came in caster form and that I would have to master the hatch. Que the nightmare all over again! I did eventually manage to hatch more than previous efforts, but I was still wasting so much money because for every fly that hatched, there were about 20 that didn’t, and when you have hundreds of little mouths to feed, the costs really start to add up. The inconsistency of successful hatchings was something that also really worried me when it came to the spiderlings needing reliable regular nutrition to keep them growing and developing at the rate they should. Then, as if sent by the universe itself, a hero came along, and the “Lord of the flies” as I’ve been calling him, came to save mine along with many other people's souls from dying whilst battling with these tiny burritos. This hero’s name was Stuart Hicks! I recently had a chat with Stuart after trying his method and having incredible success, and he kindly granted me permission to share the link to his video tutorial on YouTube with you all. I’ll pop the link to his video below along with where to buy the items needed for using his method and a few of the recommended suppliers of fly casters. We also sell our own caster hatching kit that comes with everything but the casters here. Video Tutorial Container - any supermarket, homeware, eBay, Amazon, Poundland, etc will sell a suitable container for you to put tiny holes in yourself. Bug jelly pots - most online reptile and pet shops sell these but I get mine from eBay as they’re cheaper and you can buy them in different quantities along with flavour choices here. Shavings - any pet store or online retailer. Sticks/something for them to hang from - I use these lollipop sticks from eBay Curly Wing castors - Internet Reptile Swell Reptile Northampton Reptile Centre House fly casters - EBay Green bottle casters - EBay Mantis Den Jumping Spiders Web Blue bottle casters - EBay Mantis Den Jumping Spiders Web Lastly, a couple of pointers I wanted to add. -Keeping them in the fridge is fine, and providing the temperature doesn’t drop below freezing they will be fine even in a really really cold fridge. -This method works for all fly castors, the only difference will be the length of time it takes them to hatch which will depend on how warm you’re keeping them once out of the fridge. -When you first take them out of the fridge, allow them to warm up slowly to room temperature before placing them somewhere warmer to speed up the hatching otherwise they can explode. -Always bring a few castors out at a time as backups just in case any fail to hatch. -Providing the flies with a food source once they’ve hatched will keep them alive. Using just the jelly pots they will live for around a week, with decaying fruit and veg as well they will live a little longer, but will smell a bit. -Don’t feed the flies or any other feeder bugs for that matter on iceberg lettuce or citrus fruits as these can be toxic to most animals that then go on to eat the feeder bug. -Don’t forget to give the castors a VERY fine misting of water when you set them up in the hatching tub as it helps to jump-start the process, just don’t wet them to the point they go soggy. A very fine spritz from a distance is enough. If you have any questions please reach out and let me know and I’ll be happy to find the answer for you. A big thank you to Lord of the Flies Stuart for making this video and letting me borrow it. I have no doubt it will help many many people the same way it did me. Victoria xx

Let’s talk about keeping your spider warm, and in case you haven’t read my care sheet (which I recommend you do here ), Phidippus species of jumping spider are not native to the UK, and even if they’ve been captively bred in the UK, all the various species of phidippus originate from tropical and subtropical countries. This means they need to be kept at temperatures as close to those of their natural habitat as possible for them to thrive. Yes, some spiders will “survive” at room temperature, but that’s all they’re really doing, surviving not thriving. Most Phidippus species are happiest at around 25 degrees C during the day, and can stand a small temperature drop overnight of a few degrees just as it would in the wild. Now contrary to what you may have seen elsewhere on Google or even from other keepers/breeders, these spiders need higher temperatures than those of the UK’s Spring, Autumn and Winter temperatures, and this means you will need to invest in some sort of heating equipment for them, even if you do have your central heating set to above 25 degrees C. There’s a saying that a lot of people like to use which I absolutely disagree with. They say “if you’re a comfortable temperature in a T-shirt, then your spider is a comfortable temperature.” This is so untrue for several reasons. The first being that everyone feels temperature differently. I am more than happy sat in winter wearing just a t-shirt when my hubby is sat next to me in a jumper and a blanket complaining how cold it is. The second reason is that just because your house central heating thermostat dial is set to 25 degrees C doesn’t meant that’s the temperature in every room as it depends where the sensor is and which part of the house it’s taking the reading from. Heat from central heating is also a dry heat and should not be used as the only source of warmth for them, so never put your spider on or super close to the radiators. Not only will it dehydrate them, but you have less control over the temperature and can risk cooking your spider, and there’s also no escape from the heat if you put them directly over a heart source. I use heat mats for mine, the kind you can get from most pet shops and reptile websites. Now I know some of you may have heard some horror stories about heat mats, and most Americans say to absolutely not use a heat mat, but if you use them correctly they’re perfectly safe and offer a gentle evenly distributed heat rather than an intense beam of heat like you’d get from a basking lamp, and a more widespread consistently distributed heat than that of a heat cable. Because I use heat mats for mine and am most comfortable with this method, they will be what I'm referencing for the rest of this article and what I recommend using when people ask. When setting up your enclosure and heat mat you want the mat stuck to a wall or surface that’s either behind or next to the enclosure but not quite touching it. Never put the heat mat under the enclosures base even though the instructions on the box it comes in will suggest as they are primarily designed for reptiles and larger animals. Putting the heat mat next to or behind the enclosure allows your spider to move toward or away from the heat as it desires. This next part is REALLY important and could save the life of your spider and even you if something was to go wrong. With any heating system you MUST also buy a thermostat. I’ve heard some awful stories of animals being severely dehydrated, literally cooked alive, and even houses being burnt down because they didn’t use a thermostat with the heating equipment. Not to be confused with a thermometer, a thermostat is a device that you plug into the main power, and then the heat mat plugs into the thermostat which is set to the desired temperature. It also has a little probe that takes the temperature of the air around it which I place between the heat mat and the enclosure, and then I add an additional little digital thermometer inside the enclosure so I can get accurate readings and adjust the heat as required. The way the thermostat works is once you’ve got it all connected and the probe in the correct place, set the thermostat to your desired temperature. It will then use the sensor to take readings and if it gets over the set temperature it will automatically turn the mat off and stop it from emitting heat. Once the temperature drops it will turn the heat mat back on. It’s as simple as that! I have mine plugged in all the time, even in summer, but it hardly ever turns the mat on as the temperature is usually hot enough during the day to not need the heat mat, but it’s there just in case. There are many types of thermostat, dimming ones, on/off ones, pulse ones, digital, and they all have a huge price range so which one you choose depends on you and your budget. Without a thermostat your heat mat has no way of turning off unless you do it yourself at the plug, and these heat mats will just continue to build heat even when they hit the desired temperature, this is when the horror stories of cooked pets and fires start to happen. So I’ll say it again, NEVER use a heating system without a thermostat! It’s irresponsible, dangerous, and not worth the risk! If you’re unwilling to spend the extra £20 for a thermostat then you should maybe look at a hobby that doesn’t involve a living creature and that won’t put people living with or around you in danger also. Now you know what you need and why, I will pop some common questions and answers below that people usually have. Again, if there’s anything here that isn’t answered or explained well enough just reach out to let me know, and I’ll be happy to add it in. Does the wattage of the heat mat matter? Heat mats come in loads of sizes, and the bigger the size the higher the wattage and therefor giving off more heat. If you just have the one or two spiders then the 14w 28x28cm heat mats from Swell reptile will be adequate. They do have mats in 2 smaller sizes, but I find these don’t get up to the required temperature in winter, even in a small enclosed space. My heat mat won’t get up to the temperature I need, why not? If you’re struggling to get your spider enclosure up to temperature there are a few things you can do. The first one is putting the enclosure in a smaller less open place like a bookcase or room corner rather than put it out in the open on a shelf. The more enclosed the space, the more the heat will be contained to that area. The second option, and this is one I use myself but on a larger scale, is to make a sort of insulation chamber as I call it. I’m actually in the process of designing and making a ready to go portable foldable version that’s perfect for one enclosure, but if you’re in need of something urgently or want to try and DIY something yourself, get one of those foil survival blankets which can be found in chemists or online and then stick it to the wall and sides of the area where your spiders enclosure is. Make sure your heat mat is on the inside of the foil shield and it will reflect the heat and stop it escaping which will give that area a nice temperature bump. I’ve read on the internet that I don’t need a heat mat for jumping spiders, why do you say I need one? I’m sure you’ve also read on the internet that Bigfoot is real?! 😉 The point I’m making is that not everything you read on the internet is true, and unfortunately especially when it comes to these spiders there’s a lot of incorrect information out there, and also jumping spiders are a fairly new pet to the UK market. Most of the information out there about them comes from people in America where these spiders live in the wild, so their temperatures are perfect for them. The UK is a lot colder than the US and therefore we need to provide them with temperatures that match those of their natural habitat, which means they definitely need a heat mat especially in our colder months from Autumn to Spring at least. I know someone in the UK that doesn’t use a heat mat and their spider is still alive, so why should I spend the money on something that someone else says I don't need? As I mentioned at the beginning of the blog, I’m sure there are spiders that “survive” with no heat mat, but I’m willing to bet that it’s not a very active or happy spider and will spend most of its time hiding away in its web hammock trying to keep warm. Personally this also comes down to ethics and wanting the spider to live a good quality of life. Having these little critters as pets in captivity is a privilege and should be treated as such. They deserve to live a life that’s as good as, if not better than what they would in the wild, and we have a responsibility to ensure that’s what they get. If you can’t give it what it needs either because of lack of funds, unwillingness to provide a higher quality of life, or because you think it’s just a bug and will be fine, then this isn’t the pet for you I’m afraid. Can I just put my spiders enclosure on the windowsill in the sun to warm him up? NO!!! Please don’t ever do this, with any animal in any container! Remember the story of using a magnifying glass to reflect the sun onto an ant and burn it? Well that’s what will happen to your spider. In direct sunlight the enclosures create a greenhouse effect and temperatures will sky rocket, and quickly. You will literally cook your spider, so please don’t ever do this even for a few minutes and even if you promise you will keep an eye on it. If you get distracted by something or forget you’ve left it there, it could prove to be a fatal mistake for your spider. As always, if you have any comments or questions feel free to leave them or get in touch with me. Your feedback is paramount for me to be able to offer you the best advice possible based on what you want and need to know. Victoria xx