DKS A. geniculata Sling

[Jarrod B]

My A. geniculate is stumbling around falling over, this is heart breaking for me to watch I changed the substrate and gave her/Him more moisture is there anything else I can do ? none of my other T's are acting this way should I separate her/him from the rest of them? its about a 3/4 " sling

 

[miss moxie]

Pictures of the enclosure, please.

 

[The Grym Reaper]

DKS is basically a catch-all term for the symptoms usually exhibited when your Tarantula has been poisoned (or occasionally when it has an internal parasite).

Have you sprayed any chemicals near it?
Do you have other pets and have you treated them with flea medication?
Has anyone been spraying pesticides in your area?
Have you fed it any wild caught prey?

Pics of the Tarantula and the enclosure might help as well

 

[user 666]

DKS is basically a catch-all term for the symptoms usually exhibited when your Tarantula has been poisoned (or occasionally when it has an internal parasite).

Have you sprayed any chemicals near it?
Do you have other pets and have you treated them with flea medication?
Has anyone been spraying pesticides in your area?
Have you fed it any wild caught prey?

Pics of the Tarantula and the enclosure might help as well

Poisoned? Not sure that's true.

But yes, DKS is just a label some people made up. I used to think it was an actual syndrome but eventually I realized that the label DKS is about as meaningful as attaching a label of "Pining for the Fjords" Syndrome to Ts just curling up and dying for unknown reasons.

 

[The Grym Reaper]

Poisoned? Not sure that's true.

A lot of pesticides are designed to kill insects by attacking their nervous system so it's quite feasible for them to have been poisoned in such a way (especially given how fond some Americans are of biowarfare-ing the bejesus out of everything), and we have no idea what a lot of household chemicals/deodorants/etc. could do on contact or if somehow ingested (although even something like heavily diluted bleach will still kill crickets outright within a minute).

Another cause that gets bandied about is dehydration, OP might want to make sure the T is drinking but if that garners no improvement then it's likely been poisoned somehow.

 

[Little Grey Spider]

Has it recently molted?

 

[EulersK]

... Ts just curling up and dying for unknown reasons.

You haven't actually seen the twitchy movements that people associate with DKS, have you? They don't simply curl up and die. They often live for months with those twitchy movements which get worse with time. And then they die. Also, yeah, the prevailing theory right now is that it's caused by exposure of some kind. Anything from pesticides to fragrances.

 

[Ellenantula]

You haven't actually seen the twitchy movements that people associate with DKS, have you? They don't simply curl up and die.

I read his post as noting how quickly we label something. Like: "Ts just curling up and dying could be called dying, or we can label it as "Pining for the Fjords Syndrome."
The same way some newbies attribute any unusual walk in their T as DKS syndrome. Meaning it's a mis-used label. I didn't read his remark at all as meaning "DKS is when a T curls up and dies."
It was just a comparison of knee-jerk reactions. "It's this!" "It's that!" When we really don't know.

Someone else asked OP if T had just moulted -- which I took as a reference to a recent post where a newbie thought the weakened gait of their newly moulted T was possibly DKS.

If someone can show a video of their T with a spastic walk and falling, or a T with an inability to make progress with jerky leg movements -- and especially if they can link it to some poison or chemical exposure -- then I am more willing to agree it's probably a dks-esque symptom.

DKS is overused and mis-used for symptoms that have other more likely causes. It's not a 'syndrome' just a set of symptoms until more studies are conducted, imo.

 

[boina]

Poisoning is the most repeated theory, yes, but just because it gets repeated over and over doesn't make it more right.

Yes, there have been cases of DKS like symptoms associated with poisoning.

Yes, there have also been quite a few cases of these symptoms where the owners swear that nothing even remotely poisenous has come near their spiders, or cases where only one spider is affected in a room full of spiders, making accidental poisoning highly unlikely and so on.

It's just a symptom, like a stomach ache is a symptom. Causes can vary. I am absolutely sure that there are spider diseases and possible causes we have not yet discovered. We know a absolutely nothing about spider viruses, for example, and there seem to be viruses for every living thing on the planet, even for bacteria, so...

I am highly allergic to drawing conclusions when most of the data are unknown.

 

[Devin B]

If this were one of my T's I would isolate the specimen away from my others. Without knowing what caused the symptoms I would be very careful of anything and everything that my T's come into contact with. I hope your T makes it.

 

[Ellenantula]

OP last seen 18 hours ago... maybe T was pre-moult clumsy and went ahead and flipped.

 

[miss moxie]

You haven't actually seen the twitchy movements that people associate with DKS, have you? They don't simply curl up and die. They often live for months with those twitchy movements which get worse with time. And then they die. Also, yeah, the prevailing theory right now is that it's caused by exposure of some kind. Anything from pesticides to fragrances.

It would make sense if it was something that affected their "nervous" system, for example if you likened DKS to Parkinson's disease. While Parkinson's is an actual disease and DKS (as far as we understand it) is a symptom rather than an actual disease, the result is similar at least from an observer's point of view: the gradual degradation of the central nervous system leading to more and more spasmodic motor functions.

 

[mack1855]

given how fond some Americans are of biowarfare-ing the bejesus out of everything),

As opposed to the Brits,right?..

 

[Jarrod B]

Has it recently molted?

yes about a week ago

 

[Jarrod B]

Pictures of the enclosure, please.

for my slings I use small deli cups, the sling is about 1/2 inch I guessed wrong with 3/4 inch I have 23 other t's and this is the only one doing this drunk walk. I have raised 10 slings to adult and this is the only one this happened to.
I'm still trying to figure out how to upload a vid my computer is not recognizing my phone so I can up load.

 

[Little Grey Spider]

yes about a week ago

Has it eaten since? How did the molt go? Did the sucking stomach shed properly?

 

[Ellenantula]

Would you describe the movements as more clumsy or more spastic/jerky? Can he get where he's going? Is he falling over?
I am thinking for a sling that size, plenty of time to have hardened up by now.
In fact, probably hardened fangs and ready for a meal. Can he eat?

(wondering if this was a moult gone wrong)

 

[miss moxie]

Ah yeah, @Ellenantula might be onto something with the bad molt.

 

[Ellenantula]

I hate to wish for a bad moult, but at least if it is a bad moult -- it's just a matter of getting sling to next moult quickly to repair itself.
I don't like to consider it's true dks symptoms.

Just want the sling to get through this.

 

[The Grym Reaper]

Last time I checked we weren't carpet bombing half the country with pesticides because we can't hack a few mozzys lol