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What we've just found here is actually one of my personal favorites. And a very, very interesting member of this sort of environment. Let's see if we can actually have a look. First of all if you notice over here - looks very inconspicuous. I'll actually clean away a bit here, look at this, looks like it could be an old tree stump, maybe someone trod in a little bit of animal dung there and squashed into the ground, but this is actually a home to a very incredible animal.
Let's see if anyone is at home today. What you like to do is just have something to try and get into this little gap so we're not actually damaging this home at all, but there is actually if you have a look just along the edge over here there's a little rim and you'll notice that you can get something into this rim. Now, it feels like someone is locking the door. It was very rude of me I should have knocked first. So you can actually get in and slowly but surely start to open up this amazing door over here. Look at that - now already you can see that this particular creature has got babies, which is very, very cool.
So what we're looking at here is a hole of what we call a trapdoor spider that's a member of the tarantula family. What they do is when they're very, very young this sort of size they'll leave the hole and go and dig their own little hole, and they line it with web and soil and they keep it perfectly cylindrical as you can see and they build this perfect little trapdoor They've got these little holes in the roof that they can grab and shut the door after them. And they'll stay in this hole for their entire life. Let's see if there is anyone home. Now what is very interesting is as they grow they actually DIY and they build their houses, build their holes, as they grow so being part of the tarantula family they are very long-lived. Some members of tarantula family can live over 20 years. So it's part of like this 15 years no problem, and all in the same hole which is quite incredible. So for all of those at home thinking that a couple weeks of lock down is tough imagine spending your entire life in one little hole, but let's see if we can find anyone home.
You'll notice that on this little piece of grass I just bit the end a little bit. What I'm going to do is just allow this particular critter to be able to bite on and hopefully come out to say hello. Now the babies are a good sign because mom will typically still be around with them. You just gotta feel until we can feel a little bit of movement. You can see some of the babies already starting to leave the web and leave the nest and start their own little journey. Here we go biting - one two three - cool. It's a small one nonetheless, but I said they do get to about the size of my hand.
This is what we call a trapdoor spider mainly just because of the actual natural trapdoor lid itself, but you can see just by the size of it what we call a ground dwelling spider. Spiders are broken up into two different different groups depending on if they make a web or if they are ground dwelling. And your web making spiders, what we call araneomorphs, actually in reference to their mouth parts, how their mouth parts move sideways. Your tarantulas, a lot of your ground dwelling spiders like your baboon spiders, they actually have these downward-facing mouth parts So they actually capture a prey, typically much larger. They don't have as much venom as the other species so they've actually use their size to overpower their prey.
They've got this massive set of fangs very, very soft and silky but they actually lift up these frontal legs you can see her fangs on the front over here, massive fangs, and spider of this size, and they do get a bit bigger, anything from the larger range of insects: crickets, locusts and even small frogs up to a small mouse depending on the size of the spider itself. What we look for is you want to identify between male and female when it comes to these guys is to actually look at their rump itself. You find the females typically have quite a big rump and the male's rump will be half the size of that. The abdomen itself will be half the size. Males also have slightly longer legs they tend to be a little bit more nomadic.
They'll actually go off in search of females. Find a hole with a female in it. They've basically got to signal to her that they are a mate not food. They'll have a bit of a mating process, he'll actually then go off on his own and leave. You can then see she'll lay her eggs inside. The eggs will hatch and eventually over time the little youngsters do start coming out on their own accord, completely on their own accord, to actually go and start their little lives.
They'll dig a little hole of their own and if they're females they will stay in that hole for the rest of their life, and basically just adapt it and grow it as they go. So they are ambush hunters and they've got little threads of silk that run all along the tunnel itself and they can actually feel vibrations of animals walking past, that's an elephant that's too big, little mouse comes past that's perfect, open up the door, launch out grab it and pull the animal back in.
They'll subdue it with those fangs chew the venom in, but the venom basically isn't really to kill the animal it's more to liquidize the insides so the insides turn to mush and actually makes it something that the spiders are then able to consume. In terms of being venomous, all spiders are venomous it's one of the things that makes a spider a spider is actually having venom sacs but these guys are not venomous to the extent of actually causing any harm to humans. In Southern Africa it's not actually the bigger spiders you have to worry about in terms of being venomous, it's actually the little spiders.
So we've got about 6 different species all around the size of your pinkie nail, your black buttons, your violins, those sort of spiders that can actually cause a lot of harm. These guys have their size, so use size to overpower their prey. Their bite to us will basically be like a bit of a bee sting and burn for a little bit but really nothing severe you don't have to seek any medical attention, and it really is just their size, they use their size to overpower. They inject their prey, chew it in, and actually they liquidize it they are then been able to consume that and often in the bottom that actually leave all the little components, all the exoskeletons, and the things that have been eating, and every now and then they'll actually come and take a bit of a web out with all the exoskeletons or old egg casings and actually leave it, basically clean the house out if you will.
Take any rubbish out and actually leave them, you often find on the out skirts the old nests, the old exoskeletons from this very clever lady actually cleaning her house as she goes. Alright now, we obviously we don't want leave her out of the hole, she is primarily nocturnal so she does all of her hunting at night and there's a good reason for that. So her biggest enemies, funny enough, are ants and baboons. Baboons will actually come along and they'll dig up the hole completely. Dig up that entire tube and actually eat the spider itself. Quite a good form of protein, but as we showed you with the size of the fangs she eats things on the larger scale of insects, so something like a little ant she actually can't bite, she can't physically bite onto it, and the ants will actually swarm and kill her. So it's very important to not only get her back in but to make sure that we seal up the hole again properly afterwards so no ants can come in.
Saying this as well, I've kept a bit of a look around the area haven't seen any ants coming in but in previous times that we have done this experiment we've actually watched the little youngsters come out and walk in between ants as the ants are coming towards the hole to actually try and swarm the female. We've actually seen the little youngsters coming out and walk in between the ends and carry on on their way so they're completely oblivious to the ants at that size but once I do get big they become a prime food source for ants in particular who will swarm them and then actually take over the the nest itself. So what we going to do is we're going to get her to try and bite back onto this piece, if not we'll get a slightly smaller one, come on old girl. She's got these little hooks on the end of her feet that actually hook on, you can just see them over there that actually hook onto the door to actually help close them, and those little hooks along with her fangs are what we're going to try and use to neatly slip her back in.
She's going to play ball today - come on old girl we can walk her back to the tube You'll see once she's actually in the range of her hole and she knows it, watch what she's going to do. So once she knows she's safe, she curls herself in and off she goes. Now typically she will close the door behind her, but obviously we've caused a little bit of a disturbance so she's just trying to retreat so we're going to close that hole up nicely like so.
And what I actually like to do is just to take a little bit of extra dirt and just rub it into the edges, she's still able to push it back up again, but we've sealed her in safe. A couple of her youngsters are on their way to start their own lives, their life in lock down if you will..
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