https://www.youtube.com/embed/cBdG9t4hltM
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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