Genus Ephebopus in French-Guiana

Texts and Photos by Dirk Eckardt
http://www.bird-eating-spiders.de/

It was in March and April 1995 when we wanted to change the grey atmosphere of the Ruhr Valley for a somehow mor tropical climate. We had chosen French Guiana, which although in South America still was a part of the French Republic. Post service, telecommunication, language and of course the flag were french. In fact, it is an overseas department of France in the northern part of the Latin American continent.
After having traveled around for about two weeks, we decided to make a trip to the heart of French Guiana, to ****, a small place deep down in the amazon rain forest, surrounded by nothing else than green and muggy jungle, tea-brown creeks and animals, animals, animals – well, basically moscitos and bats. We stayed nine days.

Rainforest biotope

Of course we were looking for bird-eating spiders: we knew that Avicularia, Theraphosa and Ephebopus were to most prominent species in this area, and according to what we had heared and read before they were not very rare. However, it should take long until we found the first traces of these spiders.

„You arrive at the airport and you’ll find immediately...!“ But it wasn’t as easy as the advice we got from some spider guys that had visited French Guiana before us. Partly, because Guiana is densely populated in some areas (this was obvious when I arrived in january 2003), many wood areas had been cleared and often the only thing left is scorched earth. Moreover many streets and slopes had become overgrown again by the jungle. The French don’t seem to care much about the nature, only hunters and a few tourists obsessed with shooting are ever present in the forests of Guiana.

Back to ***** in 1995: the path winded up to a small hamlet in the jungle, we passed gigantic satellite dishes and a rickety hut with the generator. The path lost itself admidst gigantic jungle trees and undergrowth. Fortunately their constant rustling made us aware of the snakes, some of them poisonous.

Giant thees in French Guiana

On a small slope we discovered some circular holes, ca 4-5 cm wide, spun with silky material: we had to look down on the floor when looking for spiders, to discover the nests of Tapinauchenius in the root areas of the trees. These were also covered with lots of silk and they were hidden under leaves and moos.
Contrary to them, the nests of Avicularia- were located mostly at eye level or higher, often on rifty trunks – but almost always these nests ended in a white silky valve.

Avicularia-Nest

The circular holes couldn’t stem from Theraphosa, they were much too small. Theraphosa dig deep galleries or they use already existing holes formely used by turtles or rodente. We found galleries that were 40 to 50 wide and only recognizable through the silky carpet laid out before the hole. The holes in the slope in ***** stemmed from Ephebopus, especially Ephebopus murinus(Walckenaer, 1837), a very cute species available now in germany, too.

Ephebopus-holes in the ground

There were other bird-eating spiders, obviously not bothered by the presence of E. murinus. First, we thought they were Ephebopus cyanognathus West & Marshall, 2000. We were able to dig out a few subadult spiders (funnily enough we couldn’t find adult ones) and take them back to germany: three females and two males. Unfortunately they did not produce offspring, and only one female , that we had for 6 years, survived.

Ephebopus uatuman Lucas, Silva & Bertani, 1992  (?) in there box

Rick West, a Canadian bird-eating expert, informed me much later in an e-mail that he doesn’t believe it had been E. cyanognathus (= „blue tooth“), because those had always “blue tooth“! Indeed, our animals had that only in the subadult phase, the female had lost the blue color after egg deposition. Maybe, then, it was E. uatuman?

We could dig out some animals:

Ephebopus(Simon, 1892) in Guyana

Later it was easier to examine them in a cricket-tin:

Ephebopus in a box

We can summarize briefly: Ephebopus qualifies magnificently to be held in a terrarium – despite the problems with breeding. By the way, in the adult stage they look totally different from female.

Male Ephebopus murinus

It would be desirable, if more and more owners would dedicate their time to this interesting and appealing species from South America.. The zoolocial specification of this species has not been finalized(at the moment they are Aviculariinae). Ephebopus usually use their broad Tarsalscopula to dig, not to climb trees
Females of E. murinus can reach the size of 50-60mm

Female Ephebopus murinus

In England and the US. these spiders are also sold as skeleton bird eating spiders”, cetraily due to the whitish drawing on their legs.
Unfortunately, the temper of these animals is always a bit crabby and excitable, so that you’d better be careful when dealing with them.