Mexican Red-rump tarantula (Brachypelma vagans), near Armenia, Cayo District
Fishing for tarantulas! Four female Cinnamon’s (Crassicrus lamanai) and a couple of Mexican Red-rumps later, the two species completely sympatric and easy to find in communities of dozens of closely spaced burrows, I had my first specimen ready for the tutelage of Piotr Naskrecki, the master of macro wide angle images. While Piotr wrangled this guy for me, I used the built-in macro setting on my camera to get this shot at f8.0, 1s, ISO 100.
Mexican Red Rump Tarantula (formerly genus Brachypelma, but now Tliltocatl vagans)*
Although probably the most abundant of tarantula species in Belize, wild populations of Brachypelma tarantulas are in decline, due to habitat loss, and because people often kill them out of ignorance when encountered in the wild/near residential areas, and because large numbers of some of the more colourful species are collected and exported illegally for the North American commercial pet trade.
*Mendoza, J. and Franke, O. "Systematic revision of Mexican threatened tarantulas Brachypelma (Araneae: Theraphosidae: Theraphosinae), with a description of a new genus, and implications on the conservation" Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society, Volume 188, Issue 1, January 2020, Pages 82–147:
https://academic.oup.com/zoolinnean/article/188/1/82/5611858
Photograph by ÐåVid HílMý
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