Ornate Armoured Trapdoor Spider

True Spiders / Huntsmans

MOQ 20 head

Partners Only

2.5 – 3.5 cm body; one of the larger Liphistius, with orange leg articles.

Ancient mesothele mygalomorph; venom is mild and not medically significant to humans, though the fangs are large. Bites are rare and reclusive by nature.

Endemic to eastern Thailand. Lives in a silk-lined burrow sealed by a hinged trapdoor on shaded earth banks and forest slopes, with radiating silk signal lines fanned out from the door. 0 – 800 m.

Ground arthropods — ants, beetles, crickets and roaches — detected when they touch the signal lines and seized at the trapdoor.

24 – 28 °C ambient — 22 °C cool end

75 – 90 %. Keep deep substrate consistently moist; never let the burrow dry out.

None required (nocturnal / fossorial).

Crickets and roaches placed near the trapdoor. Adults every 7 – 10 days; spiderlings every 4 – 5 days.

Fossorial — 8 – 12 cm of compactable moist substrate against a sloped surface for the trapdoor burrow; min 15 × 15 cm. Sensitive to disturbance — leave the burrow alone once built.

Extremely shy and reclusive; bolts back into the burrow at the slightest vibration. Not a handling species — strictly a display animal.