TARANTULA
(Aphonopelma chalcodes)
Regenerating three legs

by Jim Honcoop

(To get a closer look at any of the photos, click on them. To return to this page click on the enlarged photo.)

It was a hot and muggy day when it happened. Hot, for this is August in the Sonoran Desert in Southern Arizona. Muggy, for this is the summer rainy season and the humidity increases considerably over what it is in June, the dry part of the summer. And the afternoon before we had had a good summer storm.

It was about mid-morning and the sun was shining brightly out of a cloudless sky. I was moving dirt around, trying to keep soil erosion to a minimum during the next gully-washer. While shoveling dirt into a wheelbarrow, I saw out of the corner of my eye something move on the ground. It was a small tarantula.

Since tarantulas only come up from their burrow when the sun is down and evening has fallen, it follows that I must have dug it up inadvertently. With no burrow to go back to, I thought that most likely it was not going to survive in the heat. So I picked it up and put it in a small terrarium in the shade of a covered deck, thinking that later, after the sun was down, I would find some burrow and put the tarantula next to it. It could then decide for itself whether to use it or try to find something more to its liking. I went back to my earth-moving job and to perspiring profusely, and forgot about the tarantula for the rest of the day.
Early that evening, after the sun had done its job for the day, I went back to the tarantula to try to find it a suitable place to perhaps spent the rest of its life. Which, with any luck, could be many years since it takes them about ten years just to reach sexual maturity. When I removed the lid from the terrarium, it came walking up the side to the top and only then did I notice what I had done that morning. The poor animal had only five legs - - - three left hindlegs were missing.

Cut off right next to the body. At closer inspection I could see a little dirt caked to the three spots on the body where the legs had been cut off - - obviously by my spade. An eighth of an inch over and it would have been a dead tarantula. Only later did I learn that the dirt probably had prevented the tarantula from bleeding to death.
Now what to do? I couldn't put it out and let it slowly die of starvation, for surely with this much of a handicap it would be unable to make a living. Really there was only one thing to do - - - keep it. I saw it as my duty to take care of it as long as it needed care. Philosophically I'm against keeping wild animals of any kind or size in captivity.

Having been a docent at the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum for a few years, I knew that arachnids are capable of regenerating certain body parts, such as a leg - - - but three? Also I knew that crickets are a good food for tarantulas and other insectivores. So I set out to secure crickets in which efforts my neighbors were a big help. I hardly ever saw a cricket around my house. My neighbors did and since they did not use any insecticides around their house, I felt it was safe to feed them to my tarantula.

The crickets though, with their jumping ability, were too much for the handicapped tarantula, so they had to be modified. When trying to remove the lower part of their jumping legs, invariably the cricket would try to escape by leaving the whole leg behind. That made it less painful for me, although I would have liked to have the heavy thighs, or femurs, for the tarantula to eat. Except for one or two moths, the tarantula lived on crickets.

About mid-winter it quit eating and stayed in its burrow, which I had made for it in its terrarium, apparently to hibernate. I transferred the terrarium to the garage where there was no heating but still sheltered from the elements. I checked it regularly for water, for even during hibernation they may take water from time to time.

In early May I could see the tarantula in the opening of its burrow, so apparently it was still alive -- something of which I had not been too sure for I had not seen it for several months. I brought the terrarium back into the house and started feeding the tarantula again.

About mid-morning of the eighteenth of May, I happened to mention the tarantula to my friend Greg who had dropped in. So I looked and saw the tarantula walking above ground. I took the lid off for a better look and was overjoyed to see that the tarantula had again eight legs. It had grown three new legs under its exoskeleton and when it molted in its burrow, the new legs unfolded and after the new exo-skeleton had hardened, it was ready to walk on all eight.

To be sure, the new legs were much thinner and considerably shorter than the ones on the right side, especially the leg farthest back. But at least it had eight legs again! How amazing that a little animal as such can do a thing as generating new body parts.

Still, I wondered how much the tarantula would even now be handicapped in its nocturnal pursuit of prey animals. I decided to keep the tarantula until the next molt, figuring that by then the three new legs would have grown to normal size. So the routine of feeding the tarantula continued, although no more modifying the crickets was necessary. When winter came it went into hibernation again and in May of the next year it molted. As far as I could determine with my primitive measuring tools, the legs on the right and the left side were practically identical in lenght and thickness.

After a last photo session, that evening the tarantula was given its freedom. I never saw it again but hope it lived to a ripe old age.