Stromatopelma calceatum — Fact Sheet

Stromatopelma calceatum · Stromatopelma calceatum

Full care guide and sources

📋 At a glance

🏠 Enclosure

An adult should have a vertical enclosure around 30 x 30 x 45 cm or larger, with a cork tube or broad bark slab that reaches close to the lid. More height and anchor structure are useful only when the door, vents, and service routine are secure.

🪨 Substrate and furnishings

Decoration should solve husbandry problems. Useful decor creates retreats, climbing structure, web anchors, shaded routes, and a protected path to water. Decorative clutter that blocks access is a liability.

Use cork tubes, bark slabs, branches, leaf litter, and firm substrate in a way that supports the species’ arboreal retreat style. Do not repeatedly destroy functional webbing just to make the enclosure look tidy. Remove moldy food remains, dead feeders, and soaked waste, but leave clean working structure alone.

💡 Lighting

Normal room lighting is enough. UVB is not required, and bright basking lamps are more likely to dry or overheat the enclosure than to improve care. A regular day-night rhythm helps observation and feeding routines.

Quarantine new arrivals in a simple, secure setup before moving them into a finished display enclosure. During quarantine, watch hydration, posture, mite load, waste, injuries, feeding response, and whether the spider can retreat without being trapped in a wet corner.

🌡️ Temperature

• Daytime air: 23-27 °C
• Cool zone: 21-23 °C
• Night: 20-23 °C

💧 Humidity and water

Keep the enclosure moderately humid, but never sealed and wet. Overflow the water dish or dampen one lower corner when needed, then allow exposed surfaces to dry while the retreat stays slightly more humid.

Water should be available at all times in a shallow stable dish. Spiderlings can use a very small dish, dampened substrate patch, or carefully managed water source, but they should not be left in a dry container simply because they are small.

Ventilation is part of humidity control. If the enclosure smells sour, stays wet for days, grows heavy mold, or has condensation that never clears, reduce water input and improve air exchange before blaming the species.

🪳 Feeding

Feed appropriately sized crickets, roaches, locusts, and other safe feeder insects. Prey should usually be no larger than the spider’s abdomen or body length, and it should be removed if not eaten. Never leave live prey with a tarantula that is in premolt, freshly molted, weak, or trapped in a retreat.

Adults often do well with one suitable feeder every 7-14 days, adjusted by body condition. Slings need smaller prey more often, but they also need uneaten prey removed before it damages the spider during a molt.

Refusal is not automatically a problem. Check recent molts, abdominal condition, temperature, disturbance, prey size, and whether the animal can drink. Weight loss, a shriveled abdomen, abnormal posture, or repeated failed molts are more important warning signs than a single missed meal.

☠️ Safety

Stromatopelma calceatum must be managed without direct handling. Clinical reports of bites from some African and Asian tarantulas, including Pterinochilus murinus and Poecilotheria regalis, describe severe pain and delayed or prolonged muscle cramps. These reports justify caution across this group; they do not establish the exact severity of every species or every bite.

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

The main preventable problems are the combination of speed, vertical escape routes, medically relevant bite potential, and fall risk during rehousing. Most of them are enclosure-access problems: the keeper cannot water, feed, or clean without opening too much of the setup or disturbing the retreat.

If something looks wrong, first verify temperature, hydration, ventilation, water access, prey size, retreat fit, recent disturbance, and molt timing. Serious trauma, leaking hemolymph, persistent abnormal posture, breathing difficulty, or a trapped molt needs experienced exotic-veterinary advice when available.

Establish a baseline during the first months: normal posture, preferred retreat, drinking, feeding response, waste location, and reaction to maintenance. Later changes are easier to interpret when you know what normal looked like for that individual.