 This is one of our salmon pink tarantulas signed to the name of Lassidora parahabana Larger enclosure and that's because of the larger spider So this is a female we think she's about 20 years old and She came into the collection being approximately 10 years old when we formed Venom Tech back in 2010 typically she would deliver about 70 microlitres so about seven hundredths of a milliliter In any one Venom collection and she's shed her skin relatively recently So she's got a wonderful dark color and those red what we call guard hairs being very evident sort of fluffy appearance So there's often a good question about how do we know if the spider is content and happy for terrestrial spiders? That is the provision of hide and good substrate for arboreal spiders. We provide them with Leaves as well as the hide because a good three-dimensional structure is important for these spiders For a terrestrial spider sitting like this with the legs in a sort of star shape is a relaxed posture When they're aggressive, they're either rearing up their front legs or kicking hairs from their back legs This is an Indian ornamental spider postal a theory of regalis is a scientific name and here is an arboreal species from India and If we lift the lid You can see on the left of the hide she's chosen to sit in that relaxed of postures as she's now going to move She was in a relaxed posture She's gone back in the house. What I'm going to take out here is a fascinating species Called the horned baboon spider. So all spiders produce silk But Therophocids and the tarantulas don't produce it as a capture web. They use it just for their home enclosure and here we have a horned baboon spider and You can spot there's a horn on the top of the what we call the carapace and the head there Most of our animals came from the captive bred pet trade and pet wholesalers We also re-home animals from zoological collections. We breed some species ourselves So true spiders like the black widows and brown recluse spiders We breed because they only have a short lifespan about 18 months Therophocids and tarantulas like these horned baboons have a much longer lifespan up to 40 years And therefore that there is no need to breed them It also takes a long time for their babies to mature to be large enough to collect them from This this is the king baboon spiders They were named baboon spiders because the early taxonomists thought that they their legs look like the fingers of baboons But I think that's open to a lot of interpretation You can see the spider sitting at the entrance of his burrow And again same set up with the vormiculite Providing humidity for this species. It's native to East Africa The therophocids are ambush hunters. They spend a lot of time waiting in the hide waiting for food to come past What we have here is our collection of large Asian scorpions the Asian forest scorpions We have in a really useful boxes and we use these because they are secure the clips We can control the humidity as you can see the condensation here And the air holes down the sides. They have a vormiculite substrate. This is essentially sterile So it doesn't support any microbial growth a hide and a water bowl and The whole unit is fully autoclable We use secondary containment. So when we open an animal enclosure, there's a secondary barrier just in case it's feeling sprightly one morning Underneath the hide you'll see our Asian forest scorpion The Asian forest scorpions much like many of the forest scorpions that we have here require high humidity They're from a rainforest environment. So the vormiculite absorbs water. So this is the substrate on the bottom here absorbs water and keeps a humid atmosphere Scorpions are Predatory and they feed on other arthropods in the lab environment. We feed them with Desert locusts. This is because they are bred in captivity for pet food and zoological food It's a clean relatively clean culture. These animals we are feeding about once a month When we're ready to collect the venom, the venom is stored in the Gland at the end. So this is the the tail fin and this is the only Part of the scorpion that's actually a tail. This section is actually abdomen But it's often referred to wrongly as a tail and the Achilles as we call it the stinger on the end is where the venom would come from We gently anethetize the animals with a rising concentration of CO2 It's a carbon dioxide and then we can by using a very gentle electrical stimulation Can cause the muscle of the venom gland to contract and the venom to come out In this cabinet here behind glass how we have the scorpions that are listed under the dangerous wild animals act We were licensed to keep under that act They include the wonderful common names like the death stalker and the African fat tail Whose genus androctonus actually translates to man killer and that's what we've got here in this group What I'm going to do is actually we'll take one of these out Into the secondary containment and you can have a look. There's a very different Color and body plant of this particular scorpion. I'm actually going to get out the death stalker Because she's on the top So here we have the death stalker scorpion Lieris quinquestriatus and as the common name suggests they are of significant medical concern for humans That's another reason why we are hands off with all our animals You'll see we're using a 30 centimeter forceps and we use them whether the animals are dangerous or not and it stops us making mistakes You'll see the different coloration of this scorpion Relates to its desert habitat Whereas the Asian forest scorpion is dark with the rainforest background. This one is yellow to match the sand of the desert and much smaller animal More importantly, you also see they've got very small claws Scorpions with small claws. It's usually an indication that they have a More powerful more toxic venom from evolutionary point of view. They only need one weapon or the other It's Uses too much energy to have a high power venom and really muscular claws. So you'll see one or the other