See also the better known Cobalt Blue and Green Bottle Blue tarantulas, very pretty but not the best beginner pets. They shouldn't be handled and need careful climate.
Other tarantulas are very easy, like Rosehair or Pink Toes. They need little attention, make no noise, are hardy desert climate dwellers, and can be handled. I had a female Rosehair live for 20 years as a beginner.
I'm sure the historians are trying their best, but I think the chances of them successfully and accurately contextualizing a 2,000-year-old meme dance is approximately zero.
When you prohibit something popular, people will make up an excuse for doing it while pretending not to. The excuse will be as stupid and obviously nonsensical as they can get away with.
Their (cobalt blue’s) bite is extremely painful! Causes severe muscle cramps and inflammation. They also happen to be very aggressive if you try to handle them, so you’re likely to get bitten.
Both. Some are fast and skittish, and if they launch, even a short fall would be fatal. Description of the bite is similar to a wasp sting; only dangerous if anaphylaxis.
Their bite is much worse than a wasp sting. Unlikely to cause death or serious injury in an adult with no allergies, but the pain can be excruciating and last for many hours, and lesser symptoms for days. We usually do not prescribe muscle relaxers or opiates for a wasp sting.
They bite, they are super fragile, and some have urticating hairs that release freely if feel threatened and you don't want in your skin or floating around your room.
> The secret behind the vivid blue coloration of our tarantula lies not in the presence of blue pigments, but rather in the unique structure of their hair, which incorporates nanostructures that manipulate light to create this striking blue appearance
(In fact, I’m pretty sure I read somewhere that only a handful of blue pigments exist in nature; the vast majority of blue animals and plants use structural colouration instead. Can’t recall where I saw it, though.)
- "Anodic films can also be used for several cosmetic effects, either with thick porous coatings that can absorb dyes or with thin transparent coatings that add reflected light wave interference effects. [...] The colour [sic] formed is dependent on the thickness of the oxide (which is determined by the anodizing voltage); it is caused by the interference of light reflecting off the oxide surface with light travelling through it and reflecting off the underlying metal surface."
There's one more example in metallurgy I don't remember the name of: where you can get metals to spontaneously form color gradients by heating them in a specific way. Like, there's a thermal gradient, and that somehow translates to an oxidation-thickness gradient, which makes a rainbow. (?)
If you ground a structural color material down into a dust, it would no longer produce the same color effects anymore. By contrast, pigments and dyes have their absorption at the molecular level and would only lose their effect if you modified their chemical bonds.
With structural color, the substances themselves do not have this spectral absorption characteristic. Instead, very specific configurations are needed to produce different effects. Imagine microscopic arrays of prisms and mirrors.
Also, structural colorization is often very angle-dependent. The iridescence of flowers, feathers, etc. comes from this characteristic. At different angles of incidence of light reflecting to an observer, different colors become visible. Pigments do not do this.
Also, I think there may be differences in usage of these terms between physicists, chemists, and biologists. While writing this, I also realize I am not sure if the terms become ambiguous for relativelt inert, microscopic crystals. From a physics standpoint, I think the crystals may exhibit structural color and pigment effects. From a practical standpoint, they might behave a little more like a pigment in that you could have what seems a fine dust and mix it into paint. But, if you dissolved it to separate the crystals back into free molecules, it would then only exhibit the pigment effects.
From what I understand, with structural colors the structure is causing certain wavelengths to preferentially reflect or transmit, or behaves as a diffraction grating to split the white light. What you're describing sounds like fluorescence.
It sounds like this species has been previously known to hobbyists under the name "Chilobrachys electric blue"
I remember seeing this species in YouTube videos from at least a few years ago[0]. It's incredible to me how there's still so much we don't know about our world!
Offtopic - The man in the video is very agile on his feet. The trek looks dangerous and a single misstep can end up in a disaster. Respects for people who take such risks to study the forest ecosystem.
Blue coloration in plants and animals is admittedly uncommon, but it's far from unusual. Animals tend to cluster around earth-toned colorways, and bright reds and greens are just as uncommon as blue.
All structural. Blue eyes are depigmented, so the iris is basically "transparent" if I remember correctly. Thus they change with the light. The effect is more striking in green eyes that can turn grey.
It should say that blue pigment is rare, not blue color. The premise of structural colors being somehow less real than pigment colors is a bit weird, but for some reason common.
I don’t think this is unusual. Hobby collectors can often have collective knowledge that rivals researchers. This is especially true for less popular/well funded species like insects, fish, etc .
In case of tarantulas, there is active black/grey market trading and smuggling them, so that probably explains why white-hat scientists have hard time following.
Other tarantulas are very easy, like Rosehair or Pink Toes. They need little attention, make no noise, are hardy desert climate dwellers, and can be handled. I had a female Rosehair live for 20 years as a beginner.