Just after twelve in the afternoon the tarantula and scorpion I had
ordered with Matthijs Tempelman of
Tarantulahub yesterday in the
afternoon via Facebook Messenger arrived. I paid €25 for the
tarantula, €60 for the scorpion and €10 for shipping. All in all €95.
Later in the afternoon I prepared two enclosures. I had expected the
tarantula, a female Brachypelma boehmei, to be larger. Her enclosure
is now a bit on the large side.
Brachypelma boehmei female.
First, I transferred the female Brachypelma boehmei to her
enclosure; a plastic container with a piece of cork and some plastic
plants. The substrate is a mix of sand and coconut coir, which I had
made slightly moist.
Pandinus imperator.
Next, I transferred the Pandinus imperator to its enclosure; a
small plastic container with a piece of cork and some plastic plants. I
don't know yet if this specimen is a male or a female. The substrate
is moist coconut coir.
Finally, I cut up a super worm and put a small piece in each terrarium.
Later, in the afternoon, while checking up on the new ones, I noticed
that the emperor scorpion was eating!
Pandinus imperator eating a piece of super worm.
I also replaced the lid of the enclosure of the Brachypelma boehmei
with one with much smaller holes. The one I used originally had holes
that are a few millimeter in diameter and maybe the spider could
manage to escape through one.
Near the end of the afternoon I noticed that the Brachypelma boehmei
also had taken away the piece of superworm. When I lifted the cork
tube I spotted her on the inside of the tube holding the piece.
Just after 6 o'clock I decided to feed my four tarantulas with the
super worms that had arrived earlier today. I had ordered accidentally
two boxes instead of one with De
Kammieshop last Monday, so I have
plenty of food.
Acanthoscurria geniculata eating a Morio larva.
First, I dropped a living super worm with the female Acanthoscurria
geniculata. Normally, I pre-kill super worms to prevent them from
burrowing in the substrate. But the Acanthoscurria geniculata grabs
everything that moves, including water, so I fell confident she would
catch the worm immediately. And I was right.
Pterinochilus murinus with Morio larva.
Next, I dropped a pre-killed Morio larva with the female
Pterinochilus murinus. I carefully moved the quite skittish
tarantula near the Morio larva, but she didn't seem interested in
it. If she doesn't eat it I remove it the next day.
Next, I dropped a pre-killed Morio larva with the female
Monocentropus balfouri. But she stayed hidden underneath a plastic
leaf, so no photo.
Tliltocatl albopilosus with Morio larva.
Finally, I dropped a pre-killed Morio larva with the female
Tliltocatl albopilosus. She was also not interested, yet.
Once a lone bounty hunter, Mandalorian Din Djarin and his apprentice
Grogu embark on an exciting new Star Wars adventure.
In the evening Alice, Esme, and I watched The Mandalorian and
Grogu in a movie theatre in
the centre of Rotterdam. I liked the movie and rate it a 7 out of 10.
We did have some problems with our tickets, though. We thought we had
bought tickets for 17:30. But when we arrived the ticket scanner
reported that the tickets were invalid. A girl working for the movie
theatre let us pass. But when we wanted to enter the screening room the
movie had already started. Confused I asked for help and then it
turned out the tickets were for next week! I was told to go down to
the entry and ask if the ticket could be changed. So I went to the
same girl that helped us earlier and she changed the tickets for ones
for 19:30. So we had to wait nearly 2 hours. Because I was tired I
wanted to stay inside and just wait.
When testing a flashlight I had bought earlier today; indirect light
into the enclosures of the tarantulas I keep, I noticed that the
Pterinochilus murinus, also known as Orange Bitey Thing, was out and
about. So I moved carefully the enclosure to the livingroom table,
opened it, and took some photos.
Pterinochilus murinus RCF out and about.
This is the first time I see this tarantula entirely out of its hiding
spot since the
rehousing
I did nearly two weeks ago.
Leonard Summers—not his real name—is on the run. A former
high-ranking Russian intelligence officer who defected to the
U.S. after providing critical information about Russian spies in
U.S. government service, Leonard, his wife Martha, and son Bernard
have spent the past year holed up in a CIA facility near
Washington. After the CIA makes a deal with the U.S. Marshal
Service’s Witness Protection Program (WPP), Leonard’s family is
transported to Minneapolis. The plan is to hide them in a wooded
Minneapolis suburb that resembles their former home and dacha near
Moscow.
The Summers are received at their destination by Lucas Davenport and
fellow marshal Shelly White. Unbeknownst to them, the WPP group has
been tracked by a Russian hit team. And while nobody in the WPP has
ever been attacked…Leonard might be the first victim. As shots are
fired and enemies dodged, Lucas must move quickly to uncover where
the leak is coming from, before the hit team can strike again.
In the evening I started in Revenge
Prey,
a Prey novel book 36 by John Sandford.
In the early evening I finished Ironwood,
a Catalina Novel by Michael Connelly. It was an excellent read; a real
page turner. I liked this novel slightly more than Nightshade, which I
also rated excellent.
Sworn to protect a scenic island meant to be far from the evils of
the mainland, Detective Sergeant Stilwell can feel danger closing
in.
Detective Sergeant Stilwell knows that his posting on Catalina
Island is no paradise, but to most residents, it seems blissfully
separated—by twenty-two miles of ocean—from the troubles of Los
Angeles County. But now a threat is coming to his safe haven.
Acting on a tip from a confidential informant, Stilwell and his
deputies watch a plane land in the middle of the night at the
Airport in the Sky, a remote airstrip in the mountains. A duffel bag
of drugs is dropped and the deputies move in, but things quickly go
sideways. While Stilwell chases the fleeing pickup man into the
mountainside brush, shots are fired on the runway and the plane
flies off.
An internal inquiry follows, putting Stilwell on the bench until he
is cleared of responsibility for the disastrous operation. But he is
determined to find out who brought deadly violence to his island,
and begins his own secret investigation into the drug deal gone
wrong.
While under orders to remain in the sheriff’s substation, he finds
in the lost and found a valuable backpack that was never claimed. He
traces it to a woman who disappeared while hiking on the island four
years ago. But then why was the pack only turned in two months back?
Now thoroughly intrigued, he follows the mystery all the way to the
LAPD’s Open-Unsolved Unit and Detective Renée Ballard.
Stilwell and Ballard work the case from both sides of the channel,
and soon realize they are on the trail of a criminal who revels in
taunting the authorities. Meanwhile, frustrated at being shut out of
an investigation on his own island, Stilwell risks his already shaky
standing in the department to pursue a case whose reach is wider
than he ever imagined.
In the afternoon I started in
Ironwood,
a Catalina Novel by Michael Connelly.
In the evening, after having watched the second half of the Costa Rica
tarantula documentary part 2 with Esme (we had seen the first half in
the afternoon), I checked upon the four female tarantulas I keep.
Monocentropus balfouri with a morio worm (threat pose).
First, I tried to feed the juvenile female Monocentropus balfouri. She
immediately raised herself into a treat pose. This specimen is very
skittish in my experience, so no surprise.
Monocentropus balfouri with a morio worm.
After a short while, however, the spider relaxed and rested on top of
the morio worm.
I feed my tarantulas mostly morio worms: larvae of the darkling beetle
Zophobas atratus. I do crush the head to prevent the larva from
burrowing into the substrate and appear later as an adult beetle.
After I had fed the Monocentropus balfouri I dropped a pre-killed
morio worm with the Pterinochilus murinus, Acanthoscurria
geniculata, and finally Tliltocatl albopilosus; one larva each.
The 8th of May in the afternoon I ordered The Complete
Archive Volume 1 from
lovetarantulas.com, a 64GB USB stick
with 13 ebooks and 15 documentaries. I paid £30 (€36,22) which in my
opinion is a steal for this wealth of information. A few hours later I
got a confirmation email by Andrew Smith: it would be in the post the
next morning.
The outside of the Complete Archive Volume 1 cover.
And today, in the morning, the package finally arrived. No idea why it
took so long. The USB stick was in a small plastic bag glued to the
inside of a DVD like cover: very neat.
The inside of the Complete Archive Volume 1 cover.
In the evening I watched the first of two Costa Rica
documentaries. Alone, because Esme had school (Dutch) followed by a
dance workshop. I liked the documentary a lot: it was a mix of
historical/taxonomical information and actual field work.
After I had watched the Costa Rica documentary I checked upon the
tarantulas I keep and noticed that the juvenile female Monocentropus
balfouri was out and about.
In the evening I decided to rehouse the Orange Bitey Thing; a female
Pterinochilus murinus Red Color Form. I drilled holes in the lid of
a 19 litre plastic container, to which I added coconut coir, and some plastic
plants.
Next, I took the tarantula, still inside her small enclosure, up to
the bathroom. This species can be quite skittish and moves fast, so I
wanted a place where an escape wouldn't cause too much of a
problem. After quite some time I managed to finally move the spider in
a plastic cup using a paint brush. No threat posing by the spider, and
no running around; it was actually resisting to move at all.
Pterinochilus murinus in a catch cup.
I cleaned up some of the decoration in the original enclosure: some
cork and some plastic plants, and moved it to the new enclosure as
well. Then I tried to move the spider in her new home. But it refused
to move from her position near the bottom. There was no hole in the
bottom of the catch cup (recommended) hence I couldn't push her carefully
out that way. So I decided to let the catch cup with spider inside the
large enclosure so she could get out in her own time.
Pterinochilus murinus in a catch cup inside the new enclosure.
Notice in the above photo how the plastic plants provide plenty of
anchor points for webbing. In my experience Pterinochilus murinus
webs a lot. Because this species uses some height of its enclosure,
when available, it's now and then called semi-arboreal.
The last time I rehoused this tarantula
was way back in 2020, when it managed to escape the catch cup I used.
A woman takes a job as a housekeeper in a NYC high-rise, unaware of
the building's history of disappearances. She soon realizes the
community is shrouded in mystery.
In the evening Esme and I watched They Will Kill
You. The movie was both weird
and funny. It was nice to see Angus Sampson in a (short) role
similar to his one in The Lincoln
Lawyer: a private
investigator. Anyway, I liked the movie, and rate it a 7 out of 10.
Yesterday I noticed a small green dot in one the 10 sections of a seed
starting tray; a Carolina reaper chocolate chili pepper plant had
breached the soil. And today, in the early afternoon, a tiny seedling
could be seen.
I planted the 10 seeds Sunday the 26th of April. I got the
seeds earlier this year from my brother. According to him this pepper
grows slowly. It is my first attempt at growing chili peppers.
In the afternoon I finished The Integral
Trees,
The Smoke Ring series book 1 by Larry Niven. I really liked the
setting of the story and how one learns more and more about the smoke
ring environment. A good read; recommended.
In the free-fall environment of the Smoke Ring (an immense gaseous
envelope and neutron star circling a habitable cluster of plants,
trees and animals), descendants of the starship Discipline’s crew no
longer remember their Earth roots or the existence of Sharls Davis
Kendy, the computer AI controlling the ship — until Kendy initiated
contact once more, 500 years after the crew whom the half-mad AI
calls “mutineers” were abandoned on this strange world (see The
Integral Trees).
Fourteen years later only Jeffer, the Citizens Tree “Scientist”,
knew that Kendy was watching and advising. When Citizens Tree
rescues a family of loggers, they learn of the Admiralty, a military
organization in a town unknown to Citizens Tree. Jeffer is among
those who want to visit the town and the Admiralty, which may have
maintained intact Discipline's original computer library. The events
following the visit to the town and the subsequent flight from the
Admiralty form part of this exciting tale of adventure, danger and
courage.
In the evening I started in The Smoke
Ring, The
Smoke Ring series book 2 by Larry Niven.
