# Wise Words



## Tom (Jan 12, 2011)

The following two paragraphs are directly quoted from the book "Giant Tarantulas, The Enthusiast's Handbook" by Orin McMonigle. These two paragraphs are a the end of the section entitled "Captive Habitats". He's obviously talking about tarantulas, but the words and the concepts also seem appropriate, and currently relevant, to a lot of our tortoise discussion lately.

"Keep in mind the most important aspect of designing the habitat is paying attention to the tarantula's health and changing the habitat as needed. If a spider dies it can almost always be traced back to an error in caging, feeding or watering. Its a bigger loss if nothing is learned from the loss. Of course recent imports and adult males commonly fall over dead independent of habitat.
Information on natural ecology may provide helpful insight but it is unwise to use the information as a primary guide to design a habitat. Tarantulas live in microhabitats that can have very different temperature and moisture than the surrounding area. Even if the specifics on the exact microhabitat were available, 'Mother Nature' would need to purchase 300-3,000 spiderlings of most species just to get a single spider to adulthood. The worst enthusiast has a better record than nature and will give up long before 300, let alone 3,000."


Very wise words. Especially the second paragraph.


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## ALDABRAMAN (Jan 12, 2011)

Interesting.


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## Tom (Jan 13, 2011)

ALDABRAMAN said:


> Interesting.



I thought so too, especially in light of all of our recent discussions on husbandry.


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## PeanutbuttER (Jan 13, 2011)

Hmmm, that is an interesting perspective. Thanks for sharing that with us.


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## Robert (Jan 13, 2011)

Great post.


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## terryo (Jan 15, 2011)

Tom, do you know Frank Somma? He's speaking at my herp club.



Harvey BirdJanuary 13, 2011 at 8:56pm
Subject: Speaker for the meeting
Hello Everyone,

The January 2011 meeting is this coming Monday. I apologize for the short notice, but we finally squared away the guest speaker. Originally we were hoping for Brian Barczyk of BHB & Snakebytes TV (Youtube) to be our speaker for the month. However, he had to cancel and wants to reschedule for another time. We were able to schedule another speaker though. Frank Somma who is a local spider expert will be giving a talk on inverts at the meeting. Frank has kept and bred many species of spiders, contributed articles to local newspapers and has even loaned some of his spiders to be used in movies. 

At the meeting we will also be discussing some club business for the new year. We will also be collecting membership dues for the new year from those who wish to renew their memberships. 

I look forward to seeing you all there!

Sincerely,

Harvey

Harvey J. Bird Jr. 
President - Metropolitan Herpetological Society 
Phone: (917)992-1847 
Email: [email protected] 
Club Email: [email protected]


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## Yvonne G (Jan 15, 2011)

That second paragraph holds true for baby tortoise, I think. We know nothing about them in the wild, and what works in the wild for an adult tortoise would leave a baby starving (hay?) and dessicated.


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## tortoises101 (Jan 15, 2011)

emysemys said:


> That second paragraph holds true for baby tortoise, I think. We know nothing about them in the wild, and what works in the wild for an adult tortoise would leave a baby starving (hay?) and dessicated.



Nice how you got that catch, Yvonne.


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