Psalmopoeus irminia is black with orange chevrons and flame markings, and for most of the week you will see none of it. This is a species that builds a deep silk tunnel and stays in it. When it does come out, usually at night, it is worth the wait.
Temperament, honestly
They are fast. Faster than most new keepers expect, and they lack urticating hairs, so their defence is to leave at speed or, cornered, to bite. Their venom is not considered medically significant, but the bite itself is reported as painful. None of that makes them a difficult animal to keep: it makes them an animal you keep with a catch cup nearby and a door that opens a few centimetres at a time.
Setup
- Enclosure: tall, around 30 × 30 × 50 cm for an adult, with cross ventilation top and bottom.
- Retreat: a cork tube against the back wall. They will web it into a funnel with two entrances.
- Substrate: five centimetres, damp at the base. They often extend the web down into it.
- Water: a dish they can reach without crossing the open front.
- Temperature: room temperature, 22 to 26 °C, no supplementary heat in a normal home.
Feeding
An enthusiastic feeder that will take prey from the tunnel entrance. Adults eat a couple of appropriately sized insects a fortnight; juveniles more often. If food goes untouched for weeks, check for the dull colouring and shiny abdomen that mean a moult is coming.
Webbing
Expect the enclosure to be laced with silk within a month, often anchored between the cork and the walls. Resist the urge to clean it. Remove prey remains if you can reach them without demolishing the structure, and otherwise leave the architecture alone.
Rehousing
Do it after a moult has hardened, with the room closed and the table clear. The easiest transfer is to move the whole cork tube with the spider inside. Read rehousing without the stress before you start, and give yourself the option to stop halfway and try again tomorrow.