Help: Phidippus audax may be dying, is there anything I can do?

[JoP]

I have a juvenile P. audax that has been fine in my care up until recently. I started noticing some odd behavior with her a week or two ago, mainly in the form of aggression and sudden disinterest in food (up until then, she'd always been a good eater except for when obviously about to molt).

Today I found her laying on her back on the floor of her enclosure (on top of the substrate) but still alive. I put a water droplet and some mealworm mash on her fangs in hopes that she would eat a little, and she righted herself, but is still laying on the floor, motionless. Has anyone ever experienced anything like this? She hasn't been showing any signs of premolt, but has been refusing food for the past week or two. I'm beginning to wonder if she may have some kind of parasite I can't see (she's WC), but I haven't seen this behavior with any of my other jumpers, and I've kept a ton. Any advice is much appreciated; I'd love to help keep her alive if there's any way to do it!

 

[Mini8leggedfreak]

Well I don’t have years of experience with jumpers but my guess would have been it was gonna molt and in that case just set it aside and don’t mess with it too much.
Hope it’s ok. How do you know it’s just a juvenile?? Kind of a dumb question I know but it’s possible it’s not a juvenile and it’s just old, unless you’ve had it since it was tiny.

 

[JoP]

Well I don’t have years of experience with jumpers but my guess would have been it was gonna molt and in that case just set it aside and don’t mess with it too much.
Hope it’s ok. How do you know it’s just a juvenile?? Kind of a dumb question I know but it’s possible it’s not a juvenile and it’s just old, unless you’ve had it since it was tiny.

I've had it since it was a fairly small sling, and it still has several molts to go before maturity; I just know that from experience keeping jumpers and this species in particular. It definitely wasn't molting; jumpers typically molt inside of little web sacs they make, and in my years of keeping them I've never seen one molt anywhere else. I guess there's a chance that could be it, but I've been observing her all day and so far there are no signs of molting so I'm stumped. *shrug*

 

[Mini8leggedfreak]

Hmm. Well I hope you figure it out soon.

 

[Kayleemichelle]

Did your spider end up doing after this? Mine is doing the same now.