Avicularia versicolor strange behaviour

Oroborus

Arachnosquire
Joined
Aug 17, 2015
Messages
67
Good evening. I noticed my A versicolor has become largely unresponsive after her last moult. She is an adult approximately fours years old. Always a good eater and actively webs, she has always been in excellent health. She moulted about three days ago and the moult appears good, but now she stays at the bottom of her enclosure in a protective curl. This in and of itself is not so unusual as tarantulas have to harden after moult, but she does not seem to be coming out of it. As she was not moving, I gently touched her with a brush tip and her only response was some weak kicking and went back into her protective curl. Needless to say I do not want to stress her, but I do not want that protective curl turning into a death curl. Humidity is at about 70% at 28C and she has several water dishes at different levels. I haven't run into this before, any advice would be appreciated. Thank you.
 

JoshDM020

Arachnobaron
Joined
Mar 24, 2017
Messages
356
4 days is hardly long enough to harden completely for a mature specimen. It can take a couple of weeks or even a month for the spider to be hardened enough to eat without risking fang damage. It could just be recovering a little slow compared to what she used to, nothing sounds abnormal. Pictures of the spider and entire enclosure would help to be sure.
 

Nixphat

Arachnosquire
Joined
Oct 8, 2016
Messages
62
The humidity isn't necessary either. Just a water dish and dry substrate ;)

Edit: just reread and saw you said you have multiple water dishes, so yeah. Just dry substrate and some time. I'm sure she's just doing some spider yoga, getting used to her new exo :)
 

Moakmeister

Arachnodemon
Joined
Oct 6, 2016
Messages
741
Never touch a tarantula after it molts. Also, the versicolor had its genus changed to Caribena.
 

14pokies

Arachnoprince
Joined
Oct 25, 2014
Messages
1,735
Post pics of the T and it's enclosure.. My versicolor sometimes build web that extends to the bottom of there enclosures but I rarely see them actually on the substrate.

From what I have seen from other keepers a versicolor that's on the ground after a molt is usually a bad sign.
 
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