Great point concerning their life cycle; for decades (and still) zoos exhibited Gils Monsters in “desert exhibits” – hot and bone dry. Many wondered why the lizards invariably spent as much time as possible soaking in their water bowls. Turns out that in the wild they are below ground for about 90% of their lives, at humidity levels of 60-70%! They come out only to mate and for rare feeding forays….some may take only 2-3 large meals per year. Friends working with radio-tagged Pine Snakes in NJ have found a similar pattern – they spend most of their time at different humidity and temperature levels than one would expect, given their range.

Good luck and please keep me posted.

Best regards, Frank Indiviglio.

Sorry, as you suspect no average possible. Much depends on the institution – private or public, where located, local support, grant-writing success. Bronx Zoo, for example, has access to donors who provide millions in support yearly – names like Roosevelt (a founder), Astor, Vanderbilt etc. still associated with zoo. Usually such donors are above economic downturns, but this year the zoo had to close buildings, fire staff. Government support also critical – i.e. BZ gets land rent free, water, etc. in return for providing free admission to visitors on 1 date each week, and so on.

New exhibit funding is often via a specific donor or group – i.e. Jungleworld, opened in 1985 at a cost of appx. 30 million, was largely funded by 1 person, who also established a fund for maintenance.

Good luck and please keep me posted.

Best regards, Frank Indiviglio.

~Joseph

Indeed, not many people writing about them at all. I do read of one arachnologist, Punzo, who reared Eremobates sp. through its whole lifecycle and describes how he did it in his($300…don’t take “Solifugid biology 101″!) book. I don’t think anyone has had much success with the big guys other than keeping than alive for about a year at most.

I wonder if the hyperactive killer racing across the sand that we see is really only a small part of the picture and the lifecycle. Perhaps the majority of life is spent deep in cool underground burrows and only rarely do they come up to the surface and go into 4th gear for feeding/mating purposes.

Good luck with including these in the exhibit! If you can find a good way to put them on display i bet they would cause quite a stir. I’ve got way to many “My son/bro/cousin/best HS bud went to Iraq and their are these huge camel spiders that run at 40mph, scream while chasing you, disembowel camels by leaping 5 feet into the air and biting them in the belly, chew your feet off while you are sleeping and benumb you with venom, etc. etc. Good stuff!

Unfortunately, the few large ones that have passed through my hands (not literally, I’d sooner grab an angry Tasmanian Devil!) were in bad shape, having been confiscated in large shipments of other animals – likely tossed in as “extras” or curiosities, and they did not fare well. Staten Island Zoo was looking into working with them at one point…project on hold right now, but if it picks up I should have more to report in the future.

I’m trying to include them in an African Invertebrate exhibit for an aquarium in CT. also – funding a problem now, but perhaps when the economy picks up….

Take care, a Happy and Healthy New Year to you and yours,

Best regards, Frank Indiviglio.

Great to highlight these neat creatures!
I have kept a few that I collected several times, as you mentioned they seem to do poorly in captivity overall. I think we are missing something as far as their needs go. One of the longest runs I’ve heard of was on arachnoboards.com of a guy keeping one in a small plastic container hardly big enough for it to turn around, and feeding it sparingly. He got flamed and roasted for it, but the fact remained that the creature lived for over a year and molted successfully! I’ve seen/heard they tend to run themselves to death in captivity if they can’t find a hiding place they like.

I collected 2 Gravid female Eremobates sp. at about 4500 feet elevation in different areas of California.(small…a little bigger than a large female house cricket) Both of them eventually laid eggs for me(I actually have photos of one doing so)…which I promptly seperated because I’ve heard of many eating the eggs. Both females lost appetite and died within 2 weeks of laying, they pretty much shriveled up. However, this was right before I was about to go to college and my folks did not agree with me bringing them along. I ended up sending the eggs to 2 people in hopes of updates. Apparently at least one person succeeded in hatching the eggs, but the babies failed to survive(still waiting on those photos…). They seem to have very exacting humidity requirements(to wet and mold gets em, too dry and they shrivel up like the termites they resemble) and also are prone to escaping(heard of someone hatching them and they all ran away!). What to feed them is also a problem since they are but a few mm in length when they hatch. I’d like to try again now that I am all settled in but need to find some more gravid females first. At least for this species room temperature was fine. Actually, night temps when they were active were down in the 60′s. They like hanging around lights such as camp outhouses, probably to feed on all the manner of bugs drawn their by the lights.

Anyway, enough rambling…and I’d love to hear any experience you’ve had(kept any of the large African sp. by any chance?)

Hope you and your family are having a fun filled holiday season.

~Joseph