Brazilian Black Tarantula (Grammostola pulchra)

The Brazilian Black Tarantula is another crowd favorite mostly known for its velvet black coloration once hitting adulthood while spiderlings tend to be brown in color. They are natives of Brazil and tend to not reach full adulthood and growth for about 6 to 7 years with males living out to be between those years. Females tend to live double that amount of time and will reach a length of about 7 to 9 inches. Highly sought after due to its docile and calm nature and long life it is surely a great tarantula for a beginner to intermediate hobbyist.

Habitat:

At maximum growth you are going to need an enclosure between 10 to 15 gallons.These are terrestrial tarantulas but are opportunistic burrowers. Though it might end up being that your g.pulchra might not ever burrow it is still recommended that you add at least 4 to 5 inches of substrate. Their environment in the wild is relatively dry, and you are going to want to have the same setup for your Brazilian Black tarantula. We do recommend that you use coconut fiber just lightly dampened as most grammostola species they dislike wet and if your substrate is too “wet” they will end up crawling up to the side of your tank and not touch the substrate. In addition a hide should also be added should they want to use it. Make sure they do get plenty of ventilation and they only require about a 70% or sometimes even less humidity. They tend to do just fine in room temperature settings but we recommend their enclosure to be anywhere between 75 to 82 degrees. A full shallow water dish should also always be available for your g.pulchra and overfilling it should be enough to supply humidity. Spraying is not necessary.

Feeding:

The Brazilian Black Tarantula are much better eaters then most other grammostola genus’. A steady diet of large crickets, b.dubia cockroaches and locusts should do the trick just fine. At full growth they can easily devour a couple of roaches at a time.

Attitude:

The g. pulchra is considered an extremely docile tarantula and they normally are easy to handle should you start handling yours the minute you get it. They do come with urticating hairs but are one of the least irritating of all urticating hairs. They tend to not get skittish that often and rarely use their hairs and even more, rarely bite. Their venom has a medium toxicity level and is usually not harmful to humans (unless you have certain allergies).

All in all the Brazilian Black tarantula is a great species to have, they are slow growers great to handle and  extremely calm. Their amazing velvet black color makes them a great showcase tarantula. We do recommend being careful when handling full sized adults to prevent dropping them which can injure them severely or worse cause death. They can certainly be a great pet for as females tend to live for a long time.

Do you have a Brazilian Black Tarantula or have questions? Tell us about it! Comment down below! We’d love to hear from you.