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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Josh's Frogs" data-source="post: 239294" data-attributes="member: 49228">Chilobrachys natanacharum is also known as the Electric Blue Tarantula. In a world where just about everything wants to eat you, it is a strategy for the survival of your species to hide from everything that wants to eat you, but attract a member of the opposite sex. This species took a page from the Dead :Leaf Butterfly. This butterfly has mottled gray wings that look remarkably like dead leaves, when folded. When they open their wings, they reveal streaks of bright orange.  This tarantula is mud brown when seen from above. But when it spreads its frontmost legs and its pedipalps (kinda like arms), it shows off the inside face of these appendages. Here it has gorgeous electric blue and metallic lavender scales that refract light causing iridescence. It turns out that tarantulas see better on the blue end of the spectrum and can see each other, even in near dark conditions, when they flash the blue, inside edges of their front legs. This is actually a difficult thing to catch on camera. I have been trying for months to catch this spider's beauty. With a little advice from fellow tarantula breeder, Kelly Fornez, I finally managed it. He said the key was a darker room and a bright flash.  I think these pictures show that it did the trick![ATTACH=full]76370[/ATTACH][ATTACH=full]76371[/ATTACH]</blockquote>