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Sticker of Veracruz red-rump tarantula
Bug card No. 4571 of 4,939

Veracruz red-rump tarantula

Tliltocatl kahlenbergi
Name means: “named after Herwig Kahlenberg, who first noticed it was a new kind of tarantula”
Eats: Other bugs and small animalsSpidersRainforests and jungles8 legsNot an insect, but a bug cousin

The Veracruz red-rump tarantula is a dark, hairy spider with lots of red hair on its bottom and legs. It comes from Mexico and lives in a burrow in the ground. It is one of the smaller tarantulas in its group, but still bigger than a matchbox.

Fun fact: spiders are not insects. Insects have six legs, spiders have eight. Everyone calls them bugs anyway!
Lives in
Around Veracruz in Mexico, in burrows in the ground
Length
3.2 to 4.1 cm (1.3 to 1.6 in)
females are bigger than males
Top speed
about 1.2 km/h (0.75 mph)
On foot, estimate
What does it eat?
Like other tarantulas, it waits near its burrow and grabs insects and other small animals that come close.
For real!Photo of Veracruz red-rump tarantula
Picture by Fucesa. CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

How big is it?

How long is it?

Veracruz red-rump tarantula about 4.1 cm long (1.6 in)A toy building brick about 3.2 cm (1.3 in)A crayon about 9 cm (3.5 in)A banana about 18 cm (7.1 in)
as long as 7 grains of rice in a rowcould run across a dinner table in 3 seconds

How big is Veracruz red-rump tarantula compared to YOU?

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How fast is it?

cool stuff

Fun facts

1

Its back legs are its longest, up to 58 millimetres long on a male.

2

The mother lays fewer eggs than her cousins do, but they are bigger, so the babies are bigger too.

3

Scientists first described it in 2008, using spiders that were kept as pets in Germany.

4

It looks a lot like a cousin tarantula, but it has much more red hair.

you asked

Most asked questions about Veracruz red-rump tarantula

?How big is the Veracruz red-rump tarantula?

Its body is about 32 to 41 millimetres long, and the females are the bigger ones.

?Where does the Veracruz red-rump tarantula live?

Around Veracruz in Mexico, in burrows it makes in the ground.

For bug experts

Scientific name
Tliltocatl kahlenbergi
Named by
Rudloff, 2008
Group
Spiders
Family
Theraphosidae
Classification
Arachnida > Araneae > Theraphosidae
Lives on
North America

Where the facts come from

  1. Tliltocatl kahlenbergi (Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0): what it looks like, where it lives, what it eats, sizes and fun facts, retold in simple words.
  2. Picture by Fucesa. CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons. The sticker of this bug is drawn from this picture.

If we got something wrong, sorry, we are bug fans, not a science journal. Tell us at [email protected] and we will fix it.

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More from the same group: Spiders

Also at home here: Rainforests and jungles

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