These absolutely beautiful spiders are ANTILLES PINK TOED TARANTULAS or MARTINIQUE PINK TOED TARANTULAS, a species which in the wild lives in the trees of the warm tropical rainforests on the islands of Martinique & Guadeloupe in the Caribbean. 

I maintain a number of individuals of this species in my collection at any one time as they are my absolute favourite tarantula species due to their amazing beauty!  Sadly these photographs do not do them justice and they really do need to be seen to be believed.  Naomi, the female in the two pictures below, is especially gorgeous but these pictures do not do her colours justice at all!

Naomi is named after the lovely TV presenter Naomi Wilkinson from CBBC (and formerly Milkshake on Channel 5) who I had the great pleasure of working with last year.  Naomi is quite fearful of spiders so I decided to name this one after her as it is surely among the most attractive spider species on earth and not one to be feared due to being so pretty!

Way back in September 2011 the first individual I ever owned of this species (who was Naomi's older brother and named Smartie due to his amazing colouration) moulted for the final time to become sexually mature. It is almost impossible to tell whether a tarantula is male or female until their moult to maturity but as soon as Smartie had moulted for the final time I knew that he was definitely a male, not a female as I had hoped.  This was very sad because once they have reached maturity the males of this species do not typically live more than a few months, whereas a female might live for more than ten years.  Having grown very attached to him and his beauty this was very sad news indeed, particularly as I had watched him grow from a tiny baby to an amazing adult.

Whilst I was very disappointed to discover that he was in fact male, I was delighted when a friend of mine who works at Bristol Zoo's Bug World asked if I could consider lending them Smartie on a breeding loan as they had an adult female but not a male!  I agreed to lend Smartie to the zoo because I thought it would be fantastic if Smartie's legacy (as well as bringing so much pleasure to the many people who he had met to that point during his time here) could involve him fathering some babies.   

In October 2011 he was handed over to the zoo and stayed there for several weeks, during which time he was introduced to their female a number of times. This picture shows one of these pairings: 

Whilst there was no guarantee that the pairings would be successful I was absolutely thrilled when the zoo confirmed in February 2012 that their female had laid an egg sac (pictured below photographed on 17th February 2012):

Photograph courtesy of Carmen Solan

The fantastic news is that more than 150 babies hatched just five days after the picture above was taken!!  I first visited the zoo to see the spiderlings on 27th February 2012 when they were just five days old, very tiny and looked like this:

For a few weeks after hatching the babies are a bit like 'eggs with legs' and quite immobile, clearly looking VERY different indeed from the way that the adults look!  The pictures below were both taken on 14th March 2012 when they were a little more developed, although still largely immobile:

Photographs courtesy of Mark Bushell

The pictures below were taken on 21st March 2012 and show just how remarkable the colour change was in the seven days since the above pictures were taken!

Photographs courtesy of Carmen Solan

The pictures above show the babies as they looked just before they moulted their exoskeletons again and become the beautiful turquoise and fluffy (and highly active) spiderlings which babies of this species are known for!  This occurred on March 25th 2012 and here is a picture of the first one emerging from its old exoskeleton:

Photograph courtesy of Carmen Solan

Here is the scene just a few hours later when a great many more of them had moulted!!!

Photograph courtesy of Carmen Solan

You can clearly see the incredible colour change in the picture above, they really are beautifully blue at this stage.  What the picture also shows is just how very large each spider is compared to their cream-coloured discarded exoskeletons (exuviae).  Having said that each individual is still less than 10mm across at this stage!

I would like to say a huge public thank you to Mark Bushell - Bristol Zoo's Assistant Curator of Invertebrates - and the rest of the Bug World team at Bristol Zoo for their excellent work and also for keeping me informed at every step of the way! 

All of this baby news was especially exciting for me because as part of the breeding loan agreement with the zoo I received 50% of all the spiderlings which successfully moulted to this next life stage and on Monday 15th April 2012 I visited the zoo and collected 74 adorable little blue babies!  Here are just a couple of them on collection:

News of Bristol zoo's success in breeding this fantastic species (with Smartie's help!) has been shared in many different settings including on local television, online and in print, and even reached the national press as you can see here from the Daily Mail's article on April 30th 2012!

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2137485/Incy-wincy-spider-tarantula-size-5p-coin-hatches-time-Bristol-Zoo.html

Sadly Smartie died in early May 2012 but as sad as I was to see him go he actually outlived the usual expectations for a male of this species by many months and he obviously left behind a fabulous legacy which is absolutely brilliant.

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When I first purchased Smartie in early October 2010 he was himself just a few weeks old and therefore at the same life stage as the babies pictured above, having hatched in late August 2010. This is how small he was when I bought him, sitting in between the joints of my index finger!

He looked absolutely amazing during his development as you can see from the pictures below, because this species is always a bright metallic turquoise colour during the early months of life!

In my opinion this species is one of the most beautiful in the world, both as turquoise juveniles and as multi-coloured adults.  As adults the carapace (head area) is blue/green, the abdomen is covered in bright red & orange hairs and the blue/green legs are covered in thick fluffy purple & pink hairs as you can see in the adult pictures of Smartie at the top of the page, hence why the name Smartie was so appropriate. 

You can see exactly how much Smartie grew (and changed colour) in the eleven months from when I bought him to the final moult by comparing the two pictures below, the left taken on October 2nd 2010 and the right taken on September 4th 2011! 

Like all spiders this species has to moult its exoskeleton regularly as it grows, and below you can see the type of scene which you discover every time this happens, with the real spider (in this case Smartie) being on the right of the picture and his empty exoskeleton 0r exuvia (which was the last of the really turquoise ones) on the left hand side! 

Pictured below is the final moulted exoskeleton (exuvia) of Smartie's younger brother Skittles, first with the carapace (head area) in place and with it removed in the second picture:

The close-up picture below of the central area of the exuvia allows you to see the openings of each of the hollow 'tunnels', through which the newly formed legs and other body parts are pulled / removed during the moulting process.  It really is a remarkable process and the fact that they can remove their entire new exoskeleton from the old one without breaking the old one never ceases to amaze and impress me!

After several years of keeping the species I now have quite a collection of exuviae from them and when you line up four consecutive exuviae together it is amazing to see just how much they grow each time they moult!  Sadly these exuviae are very fragile indeed and because I handle them regularly to show children in schools etc. they unfortunately frequently lose limbs, hence why the older ones are looking a bit 'legless'!

It is an absolute privilege to be able to watch these fantastic spiders grow, develop and change colour. This species is also consistently the one which I receive the most comments about, both from people who meet them (adults & children) and also via my Facebook page where I regularly add pictures of them during their development along with many of my other animals.  Even many people who are quite fearful of spiders talk or write to me about how they can appreciate their beauty, something I really enjoy. 

As well as owning a group of Smartie's younger siblings I have of course also kept a group of his babies for myself, so I now have quite a collection of individuals of this species!  Here are some pictures of a few of them during their development: