| Archive for San Francisco Bay Area Tarantula Society SF BATS |
| CodeWilster |
Mt. Diablo hiking/buggin' - Concord CABefore I throw up some pics and talk about my last trip, I never posted pics of the previous one when I went up there for the first time with Kyle Dickerson (noexcuse4you) after the last meeting. Thanks to him I really know how to find Ts!!! Here are those pics:Start off with some scenery/habitat... 
A burrow... 
Premolt female that was in the burrow (Aphonopelma sp)... 
Freshly molted what looked like a male from the underside (probably penultimate as it was pretty big)... 
On the way home we found this guy (Kyle went to Yosemite and so I did not have a snake hook, whoops)...Yes it is a rattlesnake 
Here's a link to Kyle's thread on CRIS that shows some more pics of the spiders, habitat, etc. http://www.calris.org/forums/thre...?tid=479&posts=18&start=1 I am now working on uploading pics from my more recent trip from just a few days ago... |
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| CodeWilster |
Alright here we go! (I think I just crashed photobucket) This was my hiking trip Sunday August 30th 2009, just after dropping off some Ts and roaches with friends in Concord. I hiked with my girlfriend Sam, but my mom came too. She doesn't enjoy steep cliffs and so she stayed in the car (and read her Bible since we missed church lol). I am proud of Sam because she hiked a very long way and it was pretty warm. Not to mention all of the little flies flying around our ears and trying to drink the moisture from our eyes. I also shared hardly any water with her because I needed it to flush out Ts lol (I bought her jeans today so that makes up for it). Anyway ask all the questions you'd like after I post the pics. Enjoy!!!
Mt. Diablo State Park, Concord CA (North Gate/Mitchell Canyon) 
Again, starting off with some scenery/habitat... 
There was lots of poison oak everywhere... 
For the third time this year, confirming my immunity to it... 
Black ants... 
These guys (grass spiders) were probably my favorites. They are everywhere, and make the most amazing funnel webs (look like a giant web tornado). Some of them were at least 2 feet in diameter and would expand into the dead grasses a couple feet from the ground, funneling into about nickel - quarter sized burrows. The spiders themselves are really neat looking too! 
1st tarantula burrow of the day... 
me looking to see who is home... 
With a bit of water drained from a camelback, she shot out into my arms!!! 
Sam holding the find, she was excited to see her first wild tarantula and was suprised to see such a large one come flying out of such a small hole... 
Hmmmmm....keeper. 
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| CodeWilster |
After taking a few pics we put the nice and now well-hydrated spider next to her burrow, where she happily returned...
Shortly after, we found another burrow with a premolt female in it (that we also freed back into her burrow and covered with a thin layer of leaves)... 
Amazingly, in broad daylight as we continued walking, Sam spotted a mature male walking right across the trail in front of us. He wouldn't stop moving, this was the best pic I could get... 
We both got the idea that we should go back to the first burrow and let him go there where the recently molted female was, and so we carried him over there and spent probably 20 minutes trying to find that burrow again... 
What happened was awesome, he took about two steps until he hit her burrow entrance, and within a few seconds he was drumming away. 
Because you all know how slow the process can be and it was getting late (had to go to Ken's!!!) We left the two love birds/spiders together and that pretty much concluded our trip, until next time!!! Shot taken from the backseat, bye Mt. Devil!!! 
Hope you guys enjoyed!!! Ask all the questions you want and as Marlene said, we should plan a hiking trip just before the meeting starts on October 3rd. I would love to take a small group up there. 
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| noexcuse4you |
Awesome! Did you happen to collect a MM for our breeding group? | ||
| BCathcart |
Very Nice... :D | ||
| UglyKid2 |
Very cool! I missed out last year but I am definitely up for a T hike on Diablo this year. Who wants to go and when?
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| daveemory |
Cody - fantastic adventure, fantastic pictures! However, I'm a little surprised that you "picked up" a random male and deposited it at a "random female"'s burrow, as you just encouraged pre-marital relations between two individuals clearly living in sin. 
PC |
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| BCathcart |
I am definitely ready for a T Hike! lets Go!!!!! 
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| CodeWilster |
Kyle, I did not...whoops. I told a couple guys at Kens we found a MM and one said it's a tad early and that lots more will be maturing and walking around more toward fall. Our next SFBATS meeting is in October and sounds like we'll be up there again and so I'll see if I can find another one. I know my female just molted and so did yours so things will be ready to go! By the way, we found most of these Ts further up the trails and mountain where we found ours and the others last time, and I found a way to get from that parking lot to the hotspot in about 5 minutes walk!
To everyone else, it would be cool to do it just before the SFBATS meeting in the morning. We'd have to figure out baby sitters for our stuff though, and I'd have to discipline myself to leave the mountain so I could get to the meeting on time!!! I'd probably be going alone for the first time too (I always go with my mom since she gets free gas in a company car but I think she is busy that date). The park is open to everyone (bring $6) but I would only want to go up there with about half a dozen people to a dozen or so people, just so things don't get too crazy. I would REALLY appreciate a hike and not an all-out collecting trip
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| CodeWilster |
To PC,
They were already a wed couple, they just got in a fight over what they should name their 300 kids and so the male had wandered off and got lost. 
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| BCathcart |
Maybe we can organize a few different trips, so anyone who wants to go, can go.. like you said, so things dont get too crazy... I am heading up prob. this weekend with my wife... we will see how that goes.. This will be my first time to diablo... | ||
| CodeWilster |
Have fun! Keep in mind the burrows definitely do not stand out, it took us the whole trip (~3.5 hours) to find four burrows and one was vacant. | ||
| T_Stew |
Very very cool! Thanks for sharing.
Seeing this makes me want to try Henry Coe State Park one day. They've got a T day event so there's definitely T's there. http://www.coepark.org/tfest.html |
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| CodeWilster |
Cool! Actually I think they have something similar on Mt. Diablo every year. It might even be in a couple weeks. They have "guided tarantula hikes" I believe, that you can sign up for (don't forget I would charge you all less though )
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| UglyKid2 |
I would much rather go with you guys than on a ranger led hike with a bunch of rowdy kids and airhead parents, lol. 
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| Hozaye |
I didnt think such huuuuuuge T's lived up there... i only live 30 mins away and should totally check it out... awesome pictures man! | ||
| BayLee |
Nice pictures Cody. I need to get up there, have not been for about 2 years.
It is a great time of year for sure. |
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| CodeWilster |
November Trip with Josh, Ricky, and myself.
Here are some pictures of my recent trip to Mt. Diablo. This trip was organized for the Aphonopelma revision project that Dr. Brent Hendrixson and Dr. Jason Bond are currently working on. The specimens are being sent to East Carolina University for Bond's student Chris Hamilton, also working on the project. Can't wait to find out exactly what species is up on Mt. Diablo! (to Ricky/Josh-we'll have to let that ranger know, too! lol) I went up there with Ricky and Josh (Darth Skippy). We had a really good time despite being chewed out by a ranger that was *extremely* unhappy about my vehicle missing the front license plate. Thank God he was kind enough to only give us a warning. He also treated us like a bunch of little kids and before leaving said "You can't find any bugs right now anyway, it's too cold; you should know that"...well, pictures are worth a thousand words... Just some random habitat/views: 
Trapdoor habitat: 
Ricky found a nice Alligator Lizard: 
Josh found a nice Rattler right out in the open: 
Safely moving it away from the trail :) 
The crew (Ricky decided to go last minute and did not have any hiking attire, just his '"Stockton" clothes lol) 
I was there, too: 
Josh lookin' cool: 
Before I post pics of the tarantulas, Ricky and I found some trapdoors (Aptostichus, and I also found a Promyrmekiaphila colony): 
An abandoned burrow w/lid. (The spider likely moved on as the walls eroded that were holding up its home): 
Habitat: 
Probably a Calisoga burrow: 
Ok and now for the tarantulas... We spent close to 3 hours hiking in a known area with colonies of Aphonopelma. Our only problem was we knew that because of things beginning to cool down that the T's burrows would likely be plugged in some way. After probably 2.5 of those hours, Josh came to the rescue and found the first plugged burrow and from then on we knew what to look for: Josh found something: 
Here's what we had to find: 
Very obvious, right? 
The circled area sort of reveals the plug composed of silk and substrate. It was about an inch or two deep into the burrow, and it was amazing how well insulated the burrow was! 
And the first beautiful little find (male): 
Some bigger and better pictures of the specimens (female followed by male): 
Skippy trying to photograph a massive squirrel: 
An old Aphonopelma/rodent burrow taken over by a Black Widow: 
More pics to come in a sec, can't forget the time spent at Ken's! |
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| BCathcart |
Is the last male pictured, hooked out yet? I don't have much exp, but I always thought that the females of the species were a lot bulkier than males. All MM I have seen have been very dark in color and very lanky..... | ||
| CodeWilster |
No he's at least another molt or two away. And yeah the mature males are very dark and leggy, I have a mature male pictured in the previous page if you wanted to see it. | ||
| darth skippy |
nice pics of me cody, very dramatic
looks like that female was regenerating a leg and not just wet, huh? |
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| CodeWilster |
Actually that was the male, and yes he appears to have a regenerated leg II. The moisture/droplets is the water from the camelback.
Oh and BTW, I didn't get any poison oak!
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| darth skippy |
i did you little #@$% 
just on my shins and it's not too bad though 
i'm definitely down to do that again but next time i would like it to be in the summer so we don't have to ruin their little roof/plugs
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| CodeWilster |
Lol that stinks. I'm lucky to be immune, I hope it remains that way. And your shins of all places? You were wearing pants? I figured you would get it on your arms or someplace else...I wonder if Ricky got it...
Yeah summer is much better; late summer/early fall would be best though, since the males are wandering around that time. We can catch the wandering males and place them next to the female's burrows lol. |
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| Ricky Ortiz84 |
Great post Cody LOL I also did not get any poison oak!!!! | ||
| darth skippy |
once again...
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