Arthopods & Invertebrates

Hello all, it’s been a minute!

A full life, website issues, draft posts that I revise endlessly…c’est la vie. But all that’s to say, today I am super excited to share an interview with Dr. Derek Hennen!

Dr. Hennen has studied millipedes, more specifically American xystodesmids, polydesmids, and platydesmids, extensively, having written a complete field guide to the millipedes of Ohio, contributing to the description of the stunning Apheloria polychroma pictured here, and perhaps most famously, naming a millipede after Taylor Swift!

Amongst all this work however, Dr. Hennen is also involved in science communication, appearing on several podcasts and YouTube channels to share about the fascinating field of myriapodology. You can learn more about all of this, as well as his publications and his blog (check out the post on Berlese-Tullgren funnels!), on his website. He is also the world’s no. 2 overall identifier for millipedes on iNaturalist!

To the interview!

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Arthroverts: How did you become interested in pursuing myriapodology professionally?

Derek Hennen: It was completely random! When I was an undergraduate student at Marietta College, I had the opportunity to attend a millipede and centipede identification workshop at the Edge of Appalachia Preserve in West Union, Ohio. It was taught by Dr. Bill Shear and was my first introduction to the world of myriapods. I was totally hooked from then on because their biology was fascinating. Plus, they needed a lot of taxonomic work still, and I could find them in pretty much any patch of forest that was nearby.

A: What is it about millipedes specifically that interests you?

DH: Millipedes are a group of animals that I never thought about growing up, so maybe the fact that I knew nothing about them prior to that identification workshop made me want to make up for lost time. Some are very colorful and smell like cherries, while others have muted colors and aren’t very interesting to look at, but have speciated tremendously. With millipedes, there’s always something new to discover and they’re easy to find in a forest. I like that they’re easy to find with simple collecting methods, and people have likely run into one at some point. Many species are endemic to small areas, which is neat from a natural history perspective. Having a species near where you live that doesn’t live anywhere else is really cool, and it’s a great way to connect with your local nature.

A: What is one thing you want people to know about myriapodology?

DH: Now is a great time to get interested in myriapodology! With the advent of websites like iNaturalist, it’s much easier to get a basic grasp of the group’s taxonomy and to see what species might live near you. There are also more identification resources available now (such as my Millipedes of Ohio Field Guide), which make identifying your local species much more straightforward than having to comb through the primary scientific literature.

A: As one of the top millipede identifiers on iNaturalist, what is one thing you wish more people would do (or not do) when sharing millipede observations?

DH: I wish more people would make sure to take in-focus photos of their millipedes from close up. Oftentimes, submitted observations are taken from far away and are blurry, which makes identification difficult. I think people are a bit scared to get too close, but millipedes are harmless and won’t mind if you get in close to take your photos! A good photo from above the millipede and also one from the side are very useful for identification purposes.

A: What is your favorite part of the research process? Why?

DH: Getting out into the woods and collecting specimens! The millipedes and centipedes I study usually live in nice habitats like forests and occur in the leaf litter, under logs, and near streams, so my field collecting often takes place in beautiful spots. I enjoy wandering through the woods and seeing what I can find—you never know what you’ll get each time you go out, which is a small thrill.

A: Do you have a favorite species/genus/family? Completely understandable if this can’t be answered ;).

DH: How can I choose a favorite child? I like the families Xystodesmidae and Parajulidae, both of which are common in eastern North America. When pressed, I usually tell people that my favorite species is Semionellus placidus, the salmon cherry millipede, because that’s the species that sealed my choice to study millipedes. I found it at night using a UV flashlight and it glowed a beautiful blue-green color, it was just astounding. It blew my mind and I decided “okay, this is what I want to study.”

A: What can amateur invertebrate enthusiasts do to aid myriapodological research?

DH: Submitting observations on iNaturalist can be helpful because sometimes that’s how myriapod scientists can find rare species, or even unexpected species in new places. The best thing that invertebrate enthusiasts can do is to work to protect natural habitat. The number one threat to species is habitat loss, so preserving the natural spaces we have is very helpful.

A: How can invertebrate enthusiasts help with the conservation of millipedes, especially cryptic endemics like many xystodesmids?

DH: A big way to help is to be ambassadors for invertebrates like cherry millipedes. Larger animals like mammals and birds receive a lot of conservation funding, so championing lesser-known animals like invertebrates and getting them into the public consciousness is a good way forward. In the past decade, we’ve seen increased funding and recognition for invertebrates like native bees, and I think we can do the same for the cherry millipedes.

A: As you know, I come from a background of culturing various species in captivity. What do you think about attempting to unravel the life histories of some of these cryptic species in captivity?

DH: I think captive rearing can be very useful for studying the life history of cryptic species. For my taxonomic research, I often reared juvenile millipedes to adulthood so I could identify them to species and had great results from it. There’s a history of captive rearing in myriapodology to study how species’ morphology and physiology changes as they grow because captive rearing is often the only way to study these changes.

A: Do you have any tips or advice for people wanting to pursue myriapodology professionally?

DH: Get acquainted with the scientific literature! If you’re interested in taxonomy, you’ll be reading a lot of old papers to learn how species are described, and many species have only been collected a few times. There’s a lot of leg work to be done, but it’s rewarding. Most professional myriapodologists work in academic settings, so if you’re not interested in academia but still want to pursue myriapodology, you may have a more difficult time finding a government or private sector job that involves myriapods. If you pursue graduate school, make sure to advocate for yourself and build a supportive friend group to get you through it.

A: Lastly, any sneak-peeks on what’s in the pipeline for you?

DH: I’ve been sampling for myriapods on a nearby mountain for about the past year with leaf litter collection methods, which I’m planning to write up soon. The most difficult part is knowing when to stop collecting and get to writing, but I’m excited at the prospect. I planned this as a “place-based study” to see how many myriapods I could collect from a forest, and so far I’ve identified about 50 species, which is pretty good! What surprised me the most was how productive collecting myriapods in the late fall and throughout winter can be. I’ve collected some species during the cooler months that you don’t ever see active in the spring or summer, so if you’re not out looking when it’s chilly, you’re probably missing some species. That’s good news because now I have something to do during the winter!

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A big thank you to Dr. Hennen for sharing his experience and advice, and on behalf of amateur millipede enthusiasts everywhere we wish you the best of luck with all your endeavours!
Dr. Hennen can be reached at his website here or via Instagram here.

Also a thank you to Connor Smotzer for providing the banner photo of the Apheloria cf. polychroma!

Till next time all!

Thanks,

Arthroverts

Heyo all, recently I had the opportunity to visit Costa Rica, specifically Puntarenas Province on the Pacific Coast. I spent 12 days there, and while hunting for invertebrates was not the goal of the trip, I definitely made the most of the opportunities to explore what ecosystems and habitats I could!

Herein I present a photo journey through my trip. Coming from the hot and dry Mojave Desert, to explore a tropical rainforest, where invertebrate, plant, and fungi (and much else besides) populations are very dense and diverse, was a life-long dream realized!

Note: I will add in names as I get identifications. Find me on iNaturalist and follow me to get updated when I upload my observations from the trip (including some stuff not shown here).

Second note: all reptile/amphibian pictures are at the bottom of this post.

Thus ends the photojournal. Some lessons I learned:
The amount of water present in jungles means that flipping rocks and logs with a camera in hand is a much different proposition than doing the same in drier climes. Frequently my hands swere o wet or muddy that I was unable to handle my camera without dirtying it.
I had read in Piotr Naskrecki’s excellent book, The Smaller Majority, that photographing in rainforests is a unique challenge because of how difficult it is to protect cameras and other equipment from the water, and he was more than right.

A team of two – a photographer and a flipper – might be ideal for this kind of environment to get the best shots and find the most invertebrates. Or maybe I just needed to get a rag to wipe my hands on…
In any case, rain is a major danger to any electrical equipment, and a waterproof bag is an absolute necessity. My phone, which is housed in a snug-fitting OtterBox case that is largely water-proof, got water trapped in between the screen and the plastic screen protector twice, which shows how pervasive moisture is in this environment.

A second lesson I learned is that checking foliage, especially the underside of leaves, is not only a good idea, it is really a necessity for finding a lot of rainforest fauna. I’ve never seen so many creatures hanging out on leaves and tree trunks, especially not coming from an area where yuccas, rabbit brush, and pines are the most common plants.

Finally, a very simple thing is to make sure to use the flash. It gets quite dark under the dense rainforest canopy, and not using it is likely to be very damaging to any photography efforts. Trying to wrangle the unwieldy pop-up flash of my Nikon CoolPix S9900 for macro shots was a frustrating experience at times, but not having to rely on inconsistent natural light made it worth it (at least with my camera). A quality diffuser would be a good idea.

Till next time, Arthroverts out!

Thanks,

Arthroverts

Last November I made a trip to south-eastern Arizona, specifically the Dragoon and Chiricahua Mountains, for the express purpose of finding invertebrates. Granted the timing was not fantastic and I had only about two full days of time to explore, but I was expectant of finding cool invertebrates nonetheless after the success of Michael Jacobi and Co. in the fall of 2019. While I did not find any Aphonopelma or Scolopendra heroes, I did discover one other reason why Arizona continues to draw invertebrate enthusiasts from around the world: the scorpions.

To be clear Arizona does not possess the incredible Kovarikia or Cataliniae my home state of California has, and so therefore one can only be so impressed (;D). But I will say that finding scorpions in Arizona in fall/winter is a lot easier to do than in California; all told I found 11 specimens in roughly two days of haphazard searching spread across 4 locales of 5 species. Comparing that to the fact that I have only ever seen 2-3 Superstionia donensis, Paravaejovis puritanus and confusum, and Smeringurus vachoni in California in the fall/winter after several years of searching, that is pretty good.
Anyway, one of these species I found in Arizona was Vaejovis electrum from Mt. Graham in the Pinaleño Mountains, a very unique vaejovid species that was only described in 2011. It lives under rocks in the forests at higher elevations (8000-9000+ feet) along the mountain side. My adventure in finding them was relatively typical; I arrived near the type locality and started flipping rocks, ha ha. They are decently common, as within the space of an hour I found five specimens, all within a relatively small area, though I only managed to catch four, the first escaping as I tried to photograph it in-situ. This species seemed to favor rocks (themselves often covered in lichens) that were set fairly deep into the ground near the roots of trees, though this could just be a sampling bias as for some reason most of the rocks were near the pine trees that dominate the forests at this altitude on Mt. Graham (or vice versa). It was interesting to note that this species does not seem to be communal, as specimens were only ever found individually, unlike, say, Vaejovis carolinianus which is often found in loose aggregations under the same log or board. I did only seem to find adults or large juveniles, which could have been due to the time of year, as I imagine in the wild this species does not breed like it would in the spring or summer when food is plentiful, though this is just speculation on my part.

I was disappointed to learn that “electrum” did not refer to the electric-appearance of this species, ha ha, rather meaning “amber” in Latin and referring to their amber coloration. I personally don’t really see much amber in my specimens, but it is apparently quite a variable species in terms of coloration, and on top of this I am red-green color deficient (partially color blind), which doesn’t help with seeing the subtle hues that so often comprise amber.

Anyway, after returning home with my prize I rehoused the specimens into 5.5 ounce deli cups on slightly-moist peat with some bark and oak leaves to hide under, essentially mirroring the habitat I found them in as much as I could (I did not have flat stones small enough for them, hence the bark). Unfortunately one of the smallest specimens died soon after this for reasons I am not fully sure of, leaving me with three scorpions. These seem pretty forgiving in terms of husbandry all the same, handling both dry and moist conditions well.

I don’t believe in collecting animals as trophies, and I collected these in the hopes of breeding them; three is not great for a breeding project, but there is still hope!

…At least, there was hope until I learned that the most reliable way to sex this species is through various measurements of the body (such as the width of the chelae), measured in millimeters, as noted in the original description of this species by Garret B. Hughes. Now, V. electrum is a very small, highly skittish species, so much so that even getting a pectinal tooth count, which is helpful for sexing other species, was going to be hard, so I highly doubt, even if I had such tiny calipers to take the necessary measurements on my specimens, I would be able to sex them (alive anyway). The count of the pectinal teeth can be helpful for V. electrum, as males have a mode count of 12 and females a mode count of 13, but that is a scarce difference with plenty of room for overlap and observer miscount (1).

Thus, I am not totally sure how to proceed. I do think I have three adult specimens, and I will try to count the pectines to at least get an idea of what the sex ratio might be, but otherwise it may come down to simply putting specimens together and keeping my tongs and tongue depressor handy. In the meantime I definitely plan on upgrading the three specimen’s enclosures to something bigger and more suited to an ecoscape similar to where I found them, and perhaps I will reach out to Richard F. Ayrey, who studied this species’s reproduction in his 2013 paper “Reproduction and Birth in the “Vorhiesi” Group of the Genus Vaejovis (Scorpiones: Vaejovidae). Part I. Clutch Size”, to see how he went about sexing the specimens he used for his study (2).

Anyway, it’s been an interesting experience finding this species in the wild, studying them in captivity, and learning about them further through the published literature. I definitely hope that a breeding project is still possible for my trio of specimens, and if so their good-sized clutch sizes definitely makes the further dissemination of this species to breeders a strong possibility (2). It seems, here in the USA anyway, that enthusiasts and breeders so often miss out on our own wonderful scorpion diversity amidst an emphasis on larger, perhaps more charismatic, exotic buthid species…even though electrum is way cooler of a name then bicolor.

Why not have both?

Till next time,

Arthroverts

References:

1. Hughes, G. B. (2011). Morphological analysis of montane scorpions of the genus Vaejovis (Scorpiones: Vaejovidae) in Arizona with revised diagnoses and description of a new species. The Journal of Arachnology, 39(3), 420–438. http://www.jstor.org/stable/23070789

(open-access here, from pages 420-438: https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/page/53134399#page/57/mode/1up)

2. Ayrey, Richard. (2013). Reproduction and birth in the “vorhiesi” group of the genus Vaejovis (Scorpiones: Vaejovidae). Part I. Clutch size. Euscorpius. Euscorpius, 166:1-17. 10.18590/euscorpius.2013.vol2013.iss166.1.

Hello all, one of the interesting things about my blog is that about 90% of the traffic to it, and more than that of comments, are coming for my posts on velvet worms, specifically the Epiperipatus barbadensis I helped import to the US. This is great, but today I want to talk about another species of velvet worm from New Zealand in need of some help.

Recently I attended the 2022 Myriapod Meet-Up hosted by Paul Marek and the Marek Lab of Virginia Tech University. This was essentially a mini-conference on the subject of myriapods (centipedes, millipedes, pauropods, symphalans, and the honorary myriapods, onychophorans, or velvet worms), bringing together about 70-80 professionals from all six inhabited continents(!) to present on and discuss various discoveries in the field, and dialogue on taxonomic and conservation issues. Unfortunately, while I missed the first two hours of the conference due to forgetting the time zone change (when someone in Virginia says 8:00 AM they mean 5:00 for the West Coast…), the rest of the time I was able to listen in as such giants of the field as Sergei Golovatch, Thomas Wesener, Paul Marek, Jackson Means, Carlos Martinez, Petra Sierwald, Sam McNally, Pavel Stoev, Peter Decker, and many others discussed all manner of subjects relating to myriapods. I learned a lot, made some good contacts, and it was a true pleasure to see how international and diverse in every which way the study of Myriapoda is.

But all this aside, one of the last presentations was made by David Randle, a conservationist from New Zealand who has been working in the city of Dunedin on the south island for over 40 years. As he related during the meet-up and afterwards in private conversations, he discovered a species of velvet worm in his back yard in 1990 that is believed to belong to not just a new species, but a new genus entirely by several onychophorologists including Dr. Hilke Ruhberg. Unfortunately, for various reasons, a proper description of the species, which would have to be included in a larger revision of New Zealand velvet worms, has not yet been undertaken, so this species remains under the common name Caversham Valley Peripatus.

Now, New Zealand velvet worms have often appealed to enthusiasts such as myself due to their incredible coloration, and this species from Dunedin is no exception!

Two of the incredible things about this species is that it is capable of colonizing disturbed areas near human habitation and roads, surviving and thriving even under rotting logs of introduced tree species, and that it is found in enormous densities in good habitat. Dave mentioned that when the New Zealand Transport Authority (NZTA) widened the Southern Scenic Route, shown below on the map, he removed over 10,000 specimens from the 40 meter (130 feet) strip of land alongside the road where the expansion would take place, and when he first discovered the species in his yard in 1990, he found a colony of over 2,000 specimens living under a brick pile! This is a far cry from the single-digit number of specimens so often found in Asia and South America even by experienced field researchers, and is a testament to the prolificness of this species. I can only imagine the population density of this species in a single hectare of quality habitat (old growth forest with lots of rotting logs from native tree species such as tree fuchsia, Fuchsia
excorticata, broadleaf, Griselinia littoralis, blue gum eucalyptus, and a thick layer of leaf litter).

On the subject of land, if one looks at a map of the Dunedin area, it is easy to see that almost the entire area has been developed, which naturally raises the question of where these velvet worms live in such a region, and unfortunately the facts of that part of the story are much grimmer. Near Dave’s house remains one of the last patches of old growth forest in Dunedin, and it is here that the Caversham Valley Peripatus cling to life. Originally 10 hectares (24.7 acres), the area has since been reduced to six (14.8 acres) by continued development, and is threatened to be shrunk even smaller by plans for a new sub-division right over the best habitat in those six hectares. Dave currently manages two hectares (4.9 acres) in the affected area, but it is obvious that if the available habitat is reduced from such a small area to that even smaller one, the probability of ecological and population collapse only grows.

Thankfully, velvet worms seem to be pretty resistant to genetic depression as shown through the continued viability of captive Epiperipatus barbadensis populations after four years, 5-10 generations, and thousands of specimens, all of which come from a starting population of about 30 individuals. However, for wild populations this is obviously not a preferable situation, and other creatures, such as a species of skink only found in the forest and grasslands of the area, will be wiped out due to habitat loss and population collapse if the sub-division is put in.
Old growth forest, which is what is being threatened in Dunedin, has proven to be important to not only invertebrate fauna but all sorts of other creatures, whether in the USA, Madagascar, or in this case New Zealand, and it is hugely disappointing that it is not appreciated even though such forests are incredibly valuable parts of ecological heritage. This was made even more poignant when Dave noted that the council of Dunedin is breaking New Zealand conservation laws and a conservation plan that was put into place by the prior council in order to get the sub-division built. A contract was signed by the current council with a construction company already, and since financial law is so often placed above conservation law, getting the contract overturned and the development stopped involves going to a High Court in New Zealand, which costs around $40,000 USD (the enforcers of the law are the ones breaking it in this situation). Discouraginly, this is something out of reach of the majority of conservationists, who are so often unfortunately one-man armies.

All this was related during the Myriapod Meet-Up, and Dave’s impassioned call for help really resonated me; he has been working to protect this area for 40 years and the velvet worms inside it for over 20, and his love for the environment and the animals directly speaks to my my Christian faith of properly stewarding the natural world. I also have a similar, if not quite as urgent situation, here in my home region of Southern California and more specifically the Mojave Desert, which has seen rapid development since the 1990s. Year after year I have watched as quite literally parts of my childhood are fenced off, graded with bulldozers, and destroyed, with armies of houses, warehouses, and shopping centers replacing priorly pristine desert. I recently discovered a rare species of tenebrionid in the genus Schizillus in an area that will probably all be houses in the next ten or so years; the memory of creatures like Aptostichus lucerne, and the possibility of there being other species like it that we will never know about, continues to bother me. I have even seen such iconic species as Joshua Trees, Yucca brevifolia, be illegally chainsawed and left to rot ahead of planned development.

Those who have not had emotional connections to parts of the natural world will not understand so easily the pain of what it’s like to see it destroyed, and so it is understandable why, by and large, the plight of the Caversham Valley Peripatus remains unknown in recent times in the midst of various other tragedies.
Even for conservationists in general, who have seen this cycle repeat itself over and again, it becomes hard to have empathy when it seems like there are so few victories over which to rejoice. And I feel that’s not only sad, but dangerous, as losing empathy before the work is finished desensitizes us to these struggles, and keeps up from really investing in the work. This desensitization almost is something I have had to guard myself against with regards to human disasters, and am now realizing that it is also something I need to guard against in relation to the natural world as well. I want to approach each of these situations, whether human or natural, as an opportunity to show the content of my character and grit of my spirit, and I hope those who care about these issues also resolve to do the same.
But that may be too grand to say for now, and in any case I am here to talk about velvet worms.

What can be done to help the Caversham Valley Peripatus/velvet worms/onychophorans, even in the midst of this seemingly hopeless situation?
First off, spread the word. If I could I would fly to New Zealand to show support to Dave in person, but barring that I want to encourage anyone reading this to share this with other invertebrate enthusiasts you may know. This also effects a species of skink that Dave mentioned is only found in the area that is being developed, so share it with reptile enthusiasts too if you know of any who would be interested. I am just one blogger in a corner of the internet, but together we can make a difference for good, and as the news spreads to others it will invariably become harder for the destruction of these velvet worms to be snuck by. It is only in silence that such things can happen; Edmund Burke said, “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing,” and this is true for abuses against both humanity and nature.

Second, reach out to Dave and let him know you care about his efforts. As I noted above, it can be discouraging when one is seemingly the only person fighting to protect a species or area, and by making connections between all us one-man armies we can encourage and strengthen each other, bearing one another’s troubles so to speak. I know the community of professional myriapod researchers is now aware of this issue, and if amateurs can come together with them to support Dave and his work to save these velvet worms, skinks, and their habitat that would be amazing.

You can reach Dave by email at dhrandle30 @ gmail.com, and again I encourage everyone to pass the information along to others. If you want to help in a way besides the two I list here, please send an email to Dave, as he is familiar with the situation and the velvet worms themselves.
Please do not message him to ask about acquiring specimens for personal collections or to ask about care information; while I am sure many of us would love to breed these velvet worms in captivity, the bigger concern here is making sure they are not lost from their native habitat, which is obviously the best place for them to be, and captive breeding programs would be a last-ditch effort for New Zealand conservationists and enthusiasts to attend to.

If you would like to learn more about these velvet worms and the current situation in New Zealand, please email me (see bottom of page), and I can send along some more photographs and documents that Dave has shared with me. There are so many more interesting aspects of these velvet worms I haven’t been able to fit in here, and even now I am stirred to go see them myself! If only international travel were a little easier in these days…

I hold onto the hope that through the raising of awareness, the sharing of information, and bringing together of many who care about these things, the Caversham Valley Peripatus can be saved.

“For we know that the whole of creation groans and travails together until now.”

Thanks,

Arthroverts

Back in 2019-2020 a small number of trapdoor spiders were imported from Madagascar into the USA and sold under the name Thyropoeus mirandus. They were enormous for trapdoor spiders, easily matching the largest American trapdoor spider species (Bothriocyrtum californicum) and dwarfing the majority of other species kept in captivity, including Liphistius. They by and large sold pretty quickly, and within a few months none were to be found available anywhere, except for perhaps, of course, Madagascar itself.

Madagascar is a biodiversity hotspot to put it mildly, being home to such hobbyist favorites as Zoosphaerium, Aphistogoniulus, Monocentropus lambertoni, and Calmanesia, and therefore it should come as no surprise that such an interesting trapdoor spider would come from the island. What is surprising is to what degree Madagascar is suffering both in terms of its human population and its ecosystem, with over 2 million people below the poverty line and little hope for self-improvement with 9 out of 10 children being illiterate according to the World Bank (1). These terrible statistics point to a likewise depressing point; in the Malagasy Central Highlands, 60% of wetlands and 30% of riparian forest has been lost in the face of subsistence farming and slash-and-burn agricultural practices; this is just the highlands, and this info is quite old already, being from 2013 (2). The situation is grim across Madagascar for both the wellbeing of the people and the wildlife that call it homes, and though things like lemurs and chameleons get a lot of conservation attention, other, less-noticeable species, are pushed to the edge; multiple species of Aphistogoniulus are now restricted to small patches of rapidly-disappearing forests (3).

If Aphistogoniulus and other such invertebrate species are largely missed in the broader conservation picture (most poignantly by hobbyists so often unfortunately) despite being quite “obvious” in terms of color and size, the situation is quite possibly worse for cryptic species…such as trapdoor spiders like Migidae sp.

Now you may be thinking, “Arthroverts, what’s the deal with Migidae? Sure it’s sad what’s happening in Madagascar but what’s the deal?” Well, the answer to that is I have one.

To be clear, I won’t buy these, or most any trapdoor spider, now, and the reason for this is that back in 2021 I was very fortunate to be able to attend the February meeting of the Invertebrate Club of Southern California, at which Dr. Jason E. Bond of UC Davis (of Cryptocteniza kawtak fame) came and dialogued with club members about the conservation and cultivation of various trapdoor spiders. One of the families that came up was Migidae, and Dr. Bond expressed his deep concern over the practice of collecting and selling such spiders given the situation in Madagascar. His words have stuck with me, and in the time since I have decided not to acquire any trapdoor spiders from Madagascar if it meant buying them. By that time it was largely a moot point as the stock of such spiders had dried up, but soon after that meeting with Dr. Bond a friend of mine put his specimen up for sale or trade, and incredibly, I was able to trade for his specimen on very favorable terms. Since my friend had purchased it from an importer and was now looking to part with it, my trading for it would not incentivize further wild collection of this species (as far as I am aware), hence why I felt it was ethical for me to acquire it.

Anyway, of course, since we are dealing with a trapdoor spider, I only saw it once in the entire time I had it, and that was an unclear view through plastic and webbing. Crickets disappeared irregularly, and while it sometimes appeared as if new webbing or burrowing had taken place, I couldn’t help but wondering if I was just seeing what I wanted to and not something that was actually there (c’est la vie for keepers of such mygalomorphs). It remained unseen for close to a year.

At least, up until a few days ago.

In repeated discussions with my friend RezonantVoid (whom I interviewed a little while back), and through personal observations in the field, I have come less and less to appreciate coco coir as substrate for non-tarantula mygalomorphs (and tarantulas to to an extent). The Migidae specimen was housed on coco coir, about 12″ of it with the burrow to prove it, and so I let it be for, gosh, come to think of it, it’s been almost a year now. However, my itch has always been to rehouse it onto something with more clay content for better burrow building, and having not seen the specimen in the entire period since I got it, I was beginning to wonder if it was still alive; fungus had also started to spread throughout the substrate, necessitating a change sooner rather than later. I carefully dumped the whole block of substrate held together by hyphae into another bin, and slowly started to dismantle it with my tongs. Before long I found tube of the main burrow, and saw a very suspicious wiggling in it…

Ta-da! I was immensely happy to see that that wiggling was of a healthy, if a little thin, trapdoor spider.

On a taxonomic side note, these spiders were sold as Thyropoeus mirandus, though various other enthusiasts and breeders have taken issue with this identification, some suggesting that they are idiopids, others another genus in the Migidae, and still others, including Dr. Bond, have just left the identification at Migidae sp. I have tried to look farther into identifying this particular specimen myself, with the most recent literature being an article from 2001 entitled “A Monograph of the Migid Trap Doors of Madagascar and Review of the World Genera (Araneae, Mygalomorphae, Migidae)”, by Charles E. Griswold and Joel Ledford, which was published in Occasional Papers of the California Academy of Sciences (4). I am still continuing to work through this article and comparing the diagrams to my specimen, and will update on what, if anything, I find out. Insofar my specimen seems to match Thyropoeus in terms of external characteristics (how I wish I had gotten better pictures of leg III now!), and considering Tom Patterson found the original ID of T. mirandus accurate that is probably what it is, but until confirmation I follow the friend I got this specimen from and Dr. Bond and leave the identification at Migidae. If anyone has insight on this please be sure to comment or contact me directly.

This specimen’s fangs make it look much larger than it actually is, and while it is not particularly fast, such powerful-looking jaws do make me nervous of ever getting my finger too close, ha ha. I was, and am, absolutely floored to have this specimen. It is ostensibly a female that is probably over five years in age (at least two years in captivity now, I estimate at least three in the wild to grow to this size); considering the slow growth of most trapdoors it is quite possibly closer to a decade old, which would be longer than I’ve been keeping invertebrates seriously.

The realization of dealing with something so old has made me completely reorientate how I view keeping trapdoors and threatened mygalomorphs in general, and I strongly believe, after talking with Dr. Bond, seeing the danger to Madagascan wildlife, and finding trapdoors here in my home state of California, that such spiders should not be kept in captivity for any purpose other than life history studies or captive breeding. That’s a pretty narrow view I know, but I can’t help but feel that the removal of such amazing creatures from their native habitats, which, as far as we can be aware, was not because it was about to be destroyed given most wholesale collectors situations (in which case collecting would be justified), for the sole purpose of sitting in a jar of dirt on the shelf of someone’s collection as a trophy pet is hardly a responsible “use” of the creatures we are charged to protect. And I know I’m generalizing, and I am indicting myself in saying this because for many years I did the same thing, but I feel it is a necessary indictment of a hobby that has, by and large, ignored the wider picture in a search for the next cool species, and in doing so incentivized bad collecting methodologies and further exacerbated conservation crises the world over. There are bright spots; Simandoa conserfariam, the Mexican tarantula breeding project headed up by Dr. Jorge Mendoza, Cubaris sp. “Blonde Ducky”. But crucially, all of these projects have been reactive; reactive to the fact that the bauxite mine that destroyed the habitat of S. conserfariam was going in, and reactive to the rampant overcollection of Brachypelma and Tlitocatl to support the demand coming from us enthusiasts; in the case of C. sp. “Blonde Ducky” I think it was largely luck that specimens were collected prior to the destruction of their cave by another mine (from what I understand).

Being reactive means we are beaten to the punch; we lose our opportunity to do good for goodness’s sake because, for whatever reason, we are distracted elsewhere, and there are only so many Jorge Mendoza’s and Piotr Nasckrecki’s who can be in the right place at the right time to pull things back from the edge. I want to call us all to step into being proactive, and that means making sure we don’t incentivize the collection of threatened species in the wild, or irresponsible collection with regards to any species anywhere really. And when species like Migidae sp. “Madagascar” come in, we work together to make sure that they aren’t lost in a whirlpool of trophy-pet keeping and indiscriminate collection. Again, in this regard I am not someone to be praised; I had a general idea of what I just shared above, but did not attempt to seriously try and form a team to try and breed them, if that were even possible (the majority of the imported specimens are mature females I believe due to their size). And it is also possible that there is some enthusiast somewhere already doing yeoman’s work in trying to breed these and document their life history that I don’t know about. But regardless of either, the point remains, and for Madagascar’s sake, and truly the sake of ecosystems the world over, we need to get our act together and change this “hobby” from merely being a reactive one that in many ways supports bad ecological practices into a force for good. The world is bigger than our enclosures, and we need to start seeing it that way.

What does this mean for my specimen? I hope to keep it until it dies of old age, and then I will preserve it for further analysis. If before then I can find other people with this species, aside from being over the moon, I will most happily see if a breeding project can be undertaken. But aside from these, I hope it will help us visualize that we can both do great and terrible things for the natural world, and it’s about time we as invertebrate enthusiasts and breeders started to do more good, both for Madagascar’s sake and the rest of the world.

Thanks,

Arthroverts

Referenced Material:

1. (2020). “The World Bank in Madagascar”. The World Bank. https://www.worldbank.org/en/country/madagascar/overview#1
2. Kull, C.A. (2013). “Air photo evidence of historical land cover change in the highlands: Wetlands and grasslands give way to crops and woodlots”. Madagascar Conservation & Development. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/272471652_Air_photo_evidence_of_historical_land_cover_change_in_the_highlands_Wetlands_and_grasslands_give_way_to_crops_and_woodlots
3. Wesener T., Enghoff H., Hoffman R.L., Wägele J.W., Sierwald P. (2009). “Revision of the endemic giant fire millipedes of Madagascar, genus Aphistogoniulus (Diplopoda: Spirobolida: Pachybolidae)”. International Journal of Myriapodology. https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/31be/c45f9a2b4e7285e3568c4b0ded7e187ca387.pdf
4. Griswold C.E., Ledford J. (2001). “A Monograph of the Migid Trap Doors of Madagascar and Review of the World Genera (Araneae, Mygalomorphae, Migidae)”, Occasional Papers of the California Academy of Sciences. https://wsc.nmbe.ch/refincluded/9105