Acanthoscurria geniculata - Giant White-Knee Caresheet

Acanthoscurria geniculata - Giant White-Knee caresheet

Housing

White-knee's are terrestrial spiders, but not obligate burrowers, so require a largish tank, with a good amount of floor surface area, and a variety of surfaces on which to sit. Substrate can be peat moss or potting soil, mixed with a small amount of vermiculite, and does not need to be very deep, assuming you provide a large, dark hide, for the spider to use as a burrow. They do climb, but because they are so bulky they often fall, so it is vital that you do not provide too much height, or sharp objects that the spider could land on if it falls.
Temperatures should be around 75F, with humidity Ok at around 60%. A large water bowl will be webbed over, but used often.

Feeding

Geniculata eat like horses, and are one of the few types of spider that it is possible to overfeed. For adults, and sub adults, 1 large cockroach every 2 weeks is ample, though they will happily eat more if powerfed. Sometimes they will continue to eat through pre-moult, unlike nearly every other genus of spider.It is often difficult to remove prey boluses from the tanks because they tend to web them thoroughly to the tank floor. They are partial to maggots (and lots of them), which cannot burrow through their webbing.

Temperament

These spiders definitely have attitude, and will not always feel the need to run away from a disturbance. Sometimes, they will turn and face it head on, and threat - other times, they will casually flick some hairs, and then ignore it. The best bet is to leave them alone until they have calmed down, and restrict tank intrusion to the bare minimum.
The urticating hairs these animals so readily flick are amongst the MOST urticating of any spider, and leave rashes on whichever body parts come into contact with them, which itch like nobody's business. Strangely, it seems that the more contact I have with these spiders, the more sensitive to the hairs I become, so gloves are sometimes needed for tank changes these days.

Notes

Although the venom of this species is not very strong, the fangs are big enough in adults to cause medically significant damage should they bite, and the animals are big and powerful enough to get their own way. Sometimes, I must resort to cupping the spider in order to perform tank maintentance safely around her.