Neoholothele incei

🔤 Taxonomy

Neoholothele incei is the currently accepted scientific name. The species is still often encountered in older care material and sale lists as Holothele incei, so keep both names in mind when checking records.

World Spider Catalog treats the species as accepted and places its distribution in Trinidad and Tobago and Venezuela. The old communal reputation is a husbandry claim, not a reason to ignore individual risk.

Older names and combinations associated with the species include:

• Hapalopus incei
• Holothele incei
• Holothele vellardi
• Neoholothele vellardi

English common names used in the hobby:

• Trinidad olive tarantula
• Trinidad olive
• gold form Trinidad olive tarantula

📌 Description

Neoholothele incei is a small, heavily webbing New World tarantula that uses shallow burrows, cork edges, and sheet-like webbing as cover. The gold form is especially common in the hobby.

Adults are usually about 5-7 cm legspan. The species matures quickly compared with large terrestrial tarantulas, and females live several years while mature males are short lived.

It is quick, small, and easy to lose in a room. Treat it as a display animal: no routine handling, no open work area, and a catch cup ready before the enclosure is opened.

Olive and gold animals are traded as color forms of the same species; keep the form and breeder line on the label rather than implying a separate taxon. A settled specimen often turns cork, substrate, and leaves into connected silk tunnels. That architecture makes an excellent display but conceals prey remains and makes unplanned maintenance difficult.

Females may be less defensive than their speed suggests, yet individuals vary and a feeding response can be mistaken for aggression. Work with tools and assume that tapping the web may bring the spider toward the opening.

🌍 Distribution

Neoholothele incei is recorded from Trinidad and Tobago and Venezuela. In care, that points to a warm, well-ventilated tropical setup with a moisture option and many web anchors.

The enclosure should let the spider choose between a slightly moister burrow base and a drier surface. Constantly wet substrate is not safer; it only increases mold and mite pressure.

🌡 Climate across the native range

Monthly climate normals from reviewed GBIF occurrence locations:

Weather data by WorldClim v2.1 · Monthly normals queried by Herpeton Academy from raster values; relative humidity is derived from vapor pressure and mean temperature.

Location references use GBIF.org occurrence data where available; original occurrence records retain their source dataset licenses.

⚖️ Legal status

As checked against the current CITES Checklist, CITES Appendices, and EU wildlife-trade references on 2026-06-03, no current CITES listing or specific EU Annex listing was found for Neoholothele incei. The species is not relevant to the Bern Convention because it is not native to Europe.

Local and national rules on collection, export, import, sale, transport, exhibition, breeding, and proof of legal origin may still apply. Keep invoices, breeder details, import or transfer paperwork where relevant, and avoid animals with unclear wild-collection stories.

🤌 Husbandry

House this species alone for routine care. Groups are sometimes discussed in the hobby, but cannibalism risk rises when animals differ in size, molt timing, hunger, sex, or enclosure structure.

Spiderlings do best in tiny secure containers with fine ventilation, shape-holding substrate, and a starter hide. Adults can live well in a compact enclosure if the lid is tight and the webbing is left intact.

Build the setup around:

• 6-10 cm of substrate
• cork bark, leaf litter, and web anchors
• small water dish for larger juveniles and adults
• one lightly moistened area
• ventilation holes too small for escape

For most adults, a low enclosure around 20 x 20 x 20 cm is ample when its interior is usable. Angle a cork strip into the substrate, add leaves or twigs, and leave a clear service corner for water. The lid should open without lifting the whole web mat or exposing a straight path out.

Quarantine a new animal and use separate tongs, water equipment, and catch cups. Record meals, molts, web closure, and moisture additions. Boluses hidden beneath silk should be removed opportunistically from an edge, without dismantling the entire tunnel system.

Rehouse inside a larger clear tub with both containers touching. Open a route toward a prepared starter hide and guide from behind with a long soft brush. Never pull the spider from silk by a leg or attempt to intercept a bolt by hand.

💡 Lighting

No UVB or specialist basking lamp is required. A normal room day-night rhythm is enough, and any display light should stay weak enough that it does not overheat or dry the retreat.

🌡 Heating and temperature

Keep daytime temperatures around 22-26°C, with a modest night drop around 20-22°C. Stable room warmth is safer than a lamp aimed at a small enclosure.

Avoid temperature spikes. Tarantulas often tolerate a cool night better than a hot, dry enclosure, and small containers can overheat quickly on racks, windowsills, or shelves near radiators.

💧 Humidity and water

Keep moderate tropical humidity: a slightly damp lower layer or corner, a dry surface area, and steady ventilation. For tiny juveniles, add water in small amounts instead of flooding the whole container.

A closed, webbed burrow can mean molt preparation. Do not tear it open to check the animal unless there is a clear emergency such as flooding, collapse, or contamination.

Do not maintain the whole enclosure at a numeric humidity target. Add a small amount of water to one lower corner and let the surface dry between additions. A dish becomes practical once the spider is large enough; bottle caps or similarly stable shallow cups work for juveniles. Persistent condensation, mold spreading through webbing, or a sour smell means the setup needs less water and more air exchange.

🌿 Enclosure and decoration

Build around a webbed retreat rather than a bare display box. Fine soil mix, coco fiber, cork chips, leaves, and dry moss give the spider places to anchor tunnels.

Keep the enclosure low and simple. This species may climb webbing, but it is not arboreal; excessive height only adds fall and escape risk.

Use an unfertilized soil/coco blend that can hold a shallow tunnel. Six to ten centimetres suits an adult, while small slings need depth proportionate to their container. Avoid fertilized soil, aromatic wood, sharp stone, and wide mesh. Do not replace webbed cork merely because the display looks untidy.

🪳 Feeding

Offer small crickets, roaches, fruit flies for tiny juveniles, or cut prey for the smallest stages. Feed juveniles more often and adults every 5-10 days, adjusting for abdomen size.

Remove uneaten prey and old boluses before they rot inside webbing. Live prey should never be left with a spider that is sealed in for molt.

Prey should be smaller than the spider can control inside its tunnels. Tiny slings can take fruit flies, very small roach nymphs, or freshly killed pieces. Juveniles may feed twice weekly during rapid growth, while adults need less. Use abdomen condition rather than the feeding response as the guide. After molting, wait for dark fangs and normal movement before offering food.

🩺 Common problems

Common problems are escape through oversized ventilation, dehydration of tiny juveniles, mold in wet webbing, and injuries from prey left during molt.

A hidden spider is not automatically a sick spider. Check water, temperature, and enclosure condition first, then wait unless posture, injury, or smell indicates a real problem.

Do not assume communal tolerance makes group housing safe. Unequal size, hunger, a vulnerable molt, or a mature male can change the outcome rapidly, and dense silk makes monitoring unreliable. Individual housing is the responsible default.

A shrunken abdomen, tightly curled legs, repeated failed climbing, or an animal exposed and unresponsive deserves prompt review of heat and hydration. A spider lying on its back is usually molting and should not be turned. For leaking hemolymph, severe dehydration, or a genuinely failed molt, disturb as little as possible and seek an exotics veterinarian familiar with invertebrates where available.

📌 Conclusion

Neoholothele incei suits keepers who like small webbed displays and can work carefully around a fast animal. It is manageable, but not a handling species and not a casual communal experiment.

📚 Sources and further reading

• CITES Checklist and Appendices - legal-status references checked 2026-06-03
• EU wildlife trade regulations - legal-status references checked 2026-06-03
• Bern Convention appendices
• GBIF species backbone entry for Neoholothele incei
• World Spider Catalog species entry
• Guadanucci & Weinmann 2015: description of Neoholothele
• Tom’s Big Spiders: moisture-dependent tarantula husbandry