Description
Scientific Name: Haploclastus devamatha
Common Names: Indian Rainbow | LSD Earth Tiger | Polychromatic Earth Tiger
These extraordinary looking tarantulas are found in the Western Ghats region of India near Kerala. They were discovered by a team of researchers from the Deva Matha College in Kuravilangad, India, who discovered a total of 19 different tarantulas from 7 different genus over a 4 year period in that region. These are extremely colorful tarantulas, one of it’s common names is the “LSD Tarantula” due to the reflective and metallic sheen of colour that this species displays. As with many colorful species, this one starts out as a dull brown looking spiderling and grows quickly to display metallic and reflective hues of blue, turquoise and everything in between over it’s femurs and carapace, with a pink/grape metallic looking abdomen. It’s colors are made to look almost prismatic as light moves over the metallic shine of it’s body .
It’s reported that there are apparently two distinct colour forms of Haploclastus devamatha, a pink form and blue form. The pink form is the one known best in the hobby with it’s dark metallic blue body and pinkish/grape colored abdomen, and the blue form is apparently the same shade of metallic blues all over it’s body, including the abdomen. Which just means you get to keep both in your collection… Gotta have them all.
These aren’t very big tarantulas, but they make up for their size in beauty and attitude. Being startled or disturbed can often result in a threat pose being displayed and being foolish or careless will result in a painful bite with what is said to be a rather painful venom too. This is a fossorial species, with specimens being extracted from burrows anywhere from 10cm to 30cm deep where they originate in India. They live in burrows created up against mud banks or at the base of trees and shrubs, so make sure to provide plenty of substrate to allow for burrowing and some debris and structure that they can use to decorate the mouth of their burrow. They will spend a large amount of time in their burrows, only showing their legs at the mouth of the burrow as they wait for a hapless meal to come past. When they do show themselves, they are definitely worth gawking at.
