Tarantulas & Castles

Back in Quito (well, Cumbaya).  A tad bit different from the Galapagos, in the pace of life, elevation, and especially, the traffic.  I'd forgotten that buses in Quito don't stop for guys.  I'm not saying they don't let guys on, they just don't come to a complete stop-  the bus slows a little, so I can jump at the door and hope for the best.  It's worked out so far.  After spending my first weekend back on the mainland at Hotel Walther in Quito, I moved into the Castle, with Mateo, another USFQ student, as my host brother.  A group of 10 GAIAS students lived here before we left for the islands, and his house certainly lives up to it's name.  Built into a hill, the Castle is seperated by a high white wall from the Avienda de los Conquistadores, which is the curvy back road from Cumbaya to Quito.  Inside the wall, a pool and a series a gardens border the buildings.  The main house, where Mateo, his mother, and I live, is three stories- the bottom floor is bedrooms for rent, second is his mum's apartment, and 3rd has Mateo & my bedrooms, kitchen, living room, and the hammock room.  To the side of it, are a couple smaller buildings that are being rented out.  Inside, the walls are either white-painted brick, or bare stone blocks. Paintings, pottery, and a plethora of masks are hung on the walls and in alcoves.  I'll admit, the masks made getting a drink my first night here a little unnerving.

And today, I started on my research project on tarantulas.  Working with Alejandro, the grad student I'm helping, we started examining the preserved body of the female of unknown species.  It was awesome how Alejandro described her as like a pet in the 2 years she was in the lab before she died.  She was a big girl- since her legs curled up in death,  I don't know her full size, but her body alone was over 3 inches, and each leg at least that long.  Her fangs where bigger than the canines on a lot of dogs.  The main objective of today was to classify what type of urticating hairs she has- the barbed hairs tarantulas of the new world family Theraphosidae use for defense.  These hairs sit in little sheaths on the tarantula's abdomen, so when she's threatened by a big predator like a dog (or researcher), she spins her back to the threat and uses her back legs to flick the hairs into the air at the attacker's face.  While they are irritating to human skin, they can be lethal to animals like rats, because they don't have to travel far to get lodged in a rat's lungs.  There are 4 types of urticating hairs, and the combination varies between species, meaning that they are an important tool in classifying tarantula species, which are generally quite similar in appearance.  After sampling from several spots on her abdoment and examining the samples in a microscope, we found that our girl had hair types III and IV.

silhouettes of the 4 types of urticating hairs 

A second feature we examined were her tarsal scopulae- the hair on the bottom of her feet (the end of a spider's leg is called a tarsus), another technique for identifying species.  Because of their size, all tarantulas have fine hairs on the bottom of their feet that they use for traction (a new study has found some species that at least one species produces sticky silk on the bottom of it's feet to make gripping easier), and these patches of hair are either divided or undivided.  In undivided scopulae, the whole tarsas is covered in 1 type of hair, while in divided scopulae, the first type of hair is divided by a line of a second type of hair.  Our girl had undivided scopulae.

an example of divided tarsal scopulae, with the line of Type B hair running down the middle of the tarsus

After our examinations for the day were done, I got to see something awesome: baby tarantulas!  The female of unknown species was evidently pregnant, and laid eggs right after she was caught, so now the lab has a dozen or so 2 year old juvenile tarantulas.  And if you're thinking "2 years old?  That's old for a bug", for a tarantula, it's really not.  Currently, the oldest tarantula lived to be 48.  Being youngsters, these guys are anywhere from and inch to 2 inches long, each with his own container in the lab.