Cilantica devamatha 3/4”

size 3/4”

Easily one of the most striking spiders to enter the hobby in the 2000’s. When they were first described as Thrigmopoeus psychedelicus in 2014, it was soon coined as the LSD tarantula for its trippy colors. However it was soon discovered that a previous paper was published just weeks before describing this spider as Haploclastus devamatha. Since Haploclastus devamatha was published first, that name is the senior synonym which becomes the accepted name.  But once again the name has now been updated by Zeeshan A. Mirza in his 2024 paper that established a new genus for it, Cilantica psychedelicus. Mirza felt H. devamatha should be considered Nomen nudum because he argued that the type specimen lacked zoobank information, making it unusable for future use. However, the world spider catalog seems to disagree as they are calling this spider Cilantica devamatha.

These spiders colors as juvies and sub adults are unreal. Metallic blue and maroon colors that do darken up a bit with age. The adults are a beautiful black and blue. These spiders will dig an extensive burrow system. Native to the Western Ghats of India, it is a must have for any collection.