Avicularia purpurea — Fact Sheet

Avicularia purpurea · Avicularia purpurea

Full care guide and sources

📋 At a glance

🏠 Enclosure

Keep this species alone. An adult enclosure around 25 x 25 x 40 cm is a reasonable minimum, with greater height acceptable when branches and cork make it usable. Cross-ventilation is non-negotiable: provide small openings on opposing sides both above and below the main retreat. Top ventilation alone often leaves humid air trapped among dense webbing.

Install a vertical cork slab or tube before introducing the spider. Add foliage and thin branches so it can connect a silk sleeve from cork to wall without webbing the door shut. Use 5-8 cm of absorbent substrate and leave limited fall distance beneath exposed climbing surfaces. Place a water dish on the ground and, if practical, a second small cup higher up.

Spiderlings should begin in smaller vertical containers with the same cross-flow and abundant anchor points. Their setup dries quickly, but keeping every surface wet is equally dangerous. Move them up in stages so food and molts remain observable.

Quarantine a new animal for at least 6-8 weeks away from the collection. Keep separate tongs and cups, preserve the exact seller and locality label, and record meals, refusals, fecal spots, molts, posture, mites, and flies. Wild-caught claims or missing documents justify extra caution. Rehouse inside a larger tub with the destination enclosure open, two catch cups ready, and doors closed.

🪨 Substrate and furnishings

Use clean unfertilized topsoil, coco fibre, or a soil-coco blend that absorbs overflow without becoming swampy. Five to eight centimetres is normally enough because this is not a burrower, although planted enclosures may use more. Avoid fertilizer, pesticide residues, cedar or aromatic wood, sharp metal, and loose snagging fibres.

Secure bark and branches so they cannot shift when the door opens. Cork, broad artificial leaves, and fine twigs provide web anchors; an empty glass column does not. Keep a clear working channel for water-dish access and catch-cup placement. Avoid mesh surfaces that can trap claws.

Remove prey remains and wipe accessible fecal spots without dismantling the retreat. Replace all substrate only for contamination, pest persistence, or rehousing. If the spider seals itself in, leave the web intact and assume premolt until its behaviour shows otherwise.

💡 Lighting

No UVB or basking lamp is required. A 10-12-hour cycle of indirect room light is enough. Bright lamps may force the spider deeper into its web and can create a lethal hot upper corner.

🌡️ Temperature

Maintain about 21-26°C by day with nights near 20-23°C. These are conservative captive values based on the species’ lowland tropical distribution and successful Avicularia husbandry, not an instruction to reproduce the hottest outdoor month. Tree cavities and silk retreats buffer weather.

Heating the room is safest. Where extra heat is needed, place a thermostatically controlled low-output source outside one side and leave a cooler route. Do not heat from below or cover ventilation with a pad. Measure at web height. Sustained temperatures over 28°C accelerate dehydration and become especially dangerous in a small acrylic enclosure.

💧 Humidity and water

Provide reliable water and a humid reserve without stagnant saturation. Instrument readings around 65-80% may be observed, but ventilation, retreat condition, and access to water are better guides than a single percentage. Keep the lower layer lightly moist in one corner while allowing the exposed surface and upper web to dry after watering.

Refill a shallow dish and overflow it modestly. In a dry room, add droplets to foliage or part of the web in the evening once or twice weekly, never spray the spider or soak its silk tube. A spiderling container needs smaller, more frequent checks rather than a flooded substrate.

Persistent condensation, wet walls all day, mold, and sour odour indicate too much water or too little air exchange. A shrivelled abdomen and repeated drinking indicate dehydration. Correct heat, ventilation, and water access before making abrupt whole-enclosure changes.

🪳 Feeding

Use captive-reared roaches, crickets, or locusts where permitted. Select prey no longer than the abdomen. Tiny slings can take flightless fruit flies, pinheads, or freshly killed pieces twice weekly; juveniles generally eat every 5-7 days; adults often need one suitable item every 7-14 days. A mature well-fed female may refuse for much longer without being ill.

Offer prey near the lower edge of the web after dark. Remove it within 24 hours if not captured. Do not tear open a retreat or drop feeders into a sealed tube. Stop feeding during repeated refusal, darkening, or closure of the entrance.

After a molt, wait for black fangs and a firm body—several days for juveniles and generally 7-10 days for adults. Overfeeding enlarges the abdomen and makes a fall more dangerous. Vitamin and calcium dusts are unnecessary; feeder health and suitable size are what matter.

☠️ Safety

A bite from Avicularia purpurea can cause puncture wounds, pain and swelling. Human bite reports are too uneven to predict an individual reaction or assign a precise venom potency to every species. Do not interpret a quiet animal or a “mild venom” label as permission to handle it.

Urticating hairs are a separate hazard: they can irritate skin and injure eyes. Avoid rubbing exposed skin or eyes; suspected eye exposure needs prompt medical assessment. Keep your face away from the enclosure and wear eye protection and gloves when removing molts or used substrate.

Use long tools and a catch cup, with a second containment tub for transfers in a closed room. Keep hands out of retreats and webbing, do not hand-feed, and do not chase an escaping spider. Keep transfers low to limit fall injuries to the animal.

After a bite, wash the wound with soap and water and contact a poison centre or medical service with the scientific name and time of exposure. Seek urgent care for severe or spreading pain, muscle cramps or persistent symptoms; call emergency services for breathing difficulty, throat swelling or collapse. Do not cut the wound or try to extract venom. Treatment focuses on wound assessment and symptom control under medical supervision.

🩺 Health — warning signs

• Poor cross-ventilation combined with wet webbing can produce rapid decline.
• Chronic dryness, high heat, or an empty dish can lead to a wrinkled abdomen and weak posture.
• Refusal and a sealed tube normally indicate premolt; disturbance can cause a fatal failed molt.
• Mold, phorid flies, and mites thrive around retained prey remains and wet waste.
• Persistent wandering may indicate missing web anchors, an overheated top, excessive dampness, or repeated disturbance.
• Falls, leaking hemolymph, severe loss of coordination, eye exposure, and a clearly arrested molt require advice from an exotics veterinarian experienced with arachnids.

Do not use domestic parasite treatments, insecticides, essential oils, or cleaning fumes in the spider room.