Is my sling-juvenile G. pulchripes alright?

Ponkan

Arachnopeon
Joined
Oct 22, 2017
Messages
45
I'm worried! He/she is my first tarantula and I hope it's ok. How do I know if she's gonna go away soon? After I put her back in her enclosure, she just dug a burrow and now she's under cocofiber. She is definitely very stressed after that fall. It fell from a height of around 2.5 ft. She's about 3 inches in diagonal measurement.
 

EulersK

Arachnonomicon
Staff member
Joined
Feb 22, 2013
Messages
3,292
I definitely feel like we're missing some information here. What fall? Was it in the enclosure when it fell? What caused it? How long ago was it?

Regardless, it needs to be left alone at this point. Just keep a full water dish and hope for the best.
 

Ponkan

Arachnopeon
Joined
Oct 22, 2017
Messages
45
I definitely feel like we're missing some information here. What fall? Was it in the enclosure when it fell? What caused it? How long ago was it?

Regardless, it needs to be left alone at this point. Just keep a full water dish and hope for the best.
It fell just now. It jumped out of its enclosure - attacked my tongs - when i tried to feed it. The enclosure is on the edge of the table and the table is about 2.5 ft high. It fell to the floor of my room.
 

EulersK

Arachnonomicon
Staff member
Joined
Feb 22, 2013
Messages
3,292
It fell just now. It jumped out of its enclosure - attacked my tongs - when i tried to feed it. The enclosure is on the edge of the table and the table is about 2.5 ft high. It fell to the floor of my room.
I hope it at least fell onto carpet and not a hard floor. Like I said, it's just a waiting game at this point. Keep a full, clean water dish. That's about all you can do. Well, that and do your maintenance on the floor from now on to avoid this in the future.
 

Ponkan

Arachnopeon
Joined
Oct 22, 2017
Messages
45
I hope it at least fell onto carpet and not a hard floor. Like I said, it's just a waiting game at this point. Keep a full, clean water dish. That's about all you can do. Well, that and do your maintenance on the floor from now on to avoid this in the future.
Definitely learned a valuable lesson. Will wait it out.
 

MikeofBorg

Arachnosquire
Joined
Dec 12, 2017
Messages
91
If you ever have one damage itself in the abdomen tissue glue//super glue or cornstarch can save it from bleeding to death. They cannot clot at all. Only reason they can shed legs and not bleed to death is each leg has a sphincter at the cephalothorax they can close off. Damage anywhere else can be fatal if not treated immediately.
 

boina

Lady of the mites
Active Member
Joined
Mar 25, 2015
Messages
2,217
They cannot clot at all.
That's definitely not true. Their clotting system is less efficient than that of mammals and they are not able to repair large wounds, but they do have a clotting system and close off small wounds just fine. Btw, using super glue on the abdomen may very well lead to death during the nest molt, because they can't molt the superglue off.
 

kylepeach

Arachnopeon
Joined
Jun 24, 2018
Messages
7
:hurting:
Do you have a picture you can provide for us? Maybe we'll be able to see anything out of the ordinary?
 

MikeofBorg

Arachnosquire
Joined
Dec 12, 2017
Messages
91
That's definitely not true. Their clotting system is less efficient than that of mammals and they are not able to repair large wounds, but they do have a clotting system and close off small wounds just fine. Btw, using super glue on the abdomen may very well lead to death during the nest molt, because they can't molt the superglue off.
Hemolymph does not clot. It dries if the injury is small enough not to cause death. And it’s better to deal with having to peal off a piece of stuck molt than losing a T. I have seen it used first hand and how to deal with it being stuck. That is where olive oil or Vaseline come in handy just be sure to never cover the book lungs. Generally a stuck portion will be confined to the area that was glued. But, anytime you deal with an injury to a T it can be touch and go, especially an abdomen injury.
 

Ponkan

Arachnopeon
Joined
Oct 22, 2017
Messages
45
@MikeofBorg Thanks for the tips! I didn't see any particular injury on its abdomen. I just saw it limping a bit but she was able to crawl under dirt.

@kylepeach Sorry I don't have any pictures to show as she is under the ground atm.
 

InvertAddiction

Arachnoknight
Joined
Feb 17, 2018
Messages
196
As everyone else said, it's a waiting game till it emerges. Definitely don't mess with it or the enclosure to add more stress which could end up killing it. Bit of advice for next time, maybe instead of tong feeding, just drop the feeder in the enclosure? Or move the enclosure away from the edge of the stand?
 

boina

Lady of the mites
Active Member
Joined
Mar 25, 2015
Messages
2,217
Hemolymph does not clot. It dries if the injury is small enough not to cause death. And it’s better to deal with having to peal off a piece of stuck molt than losing a T. I have seen it used first hand and how to deal with it being stuck. That is where olive oil or Vaseline come in handy just be sure to never cover the book lungs. Generally a stuck portion will be confined to the area that was glued. But, anytime you deal with an injury to a T it can be touch and go, especially an abdomen injury.
Hemolymph does clot:

http://organelas.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/09/fukuzawa2008-spider-immunity-hemocytes.pdf

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1570963915002897

https://www.cell.com/trends/immunology/pdf/S1471-4906(04)00091-2.pdf

How much more do you want? It took me all of 3 minutes to find those three citations.
 

MikeofBorg

Arachnosquire
Joined
Dec 12, 2017
Messages
91
They have the systems but it isn’t the same as clotting in mammals which is why they can bleed to death very easily while a similar injury to a mammal of similar size would be trivial. And many of those papers were using horseshoe crabs as their study organism, which have a more efficient clotting enzymes and proteins compared to land Arthropoda. The thing with hemolymph is it doesn’t use cellular structures to transport oxygen and it’s an open system. Making any wounds life threatening due to the lack of cells to block the opening. While our oxygen carrying RB cells get trapped in fibrin and platelets quickly plugging the wound. Spiders seep and seep until the enzymes and proteins activate in the hemolymph. Which takes much longer than ours. Which means they continue to bleed far far longer than mammals. Which as all T owners know can lead to death quickly. It is better to assume your T has no way to clot a bleeding wound than hope it seals on its own.

Besides if they could clot so well they would not need sphincters to keep from dying after shedding a leg. It’s just better as a T owner to treat any bleeding wounds as life threatening. A T can survive a piece of molt being stuck to their abdomen after gluing a wound. They can’t survive bleeding for minutes on end while a T owner hopes they clot up soon.
 
Last edited:

EulersK

Arachnonomicon
Staff member
Joined
Feb 22, 2013
Messages
3,292
They cannot clot at all.
They have the systems but it isn’t the same as clotting in mammals which is why they can bleed to death very easily while a similar injury to a mammal of similar size would be trivial.
@boina never said that they're as good as mammals at closing open wounds. You said that they can't clot "at all" which is an absolute. Even you later on said that they do have a clotting system.

Regardless, superglue still is not a good idea. I've seen many newbies try this method and end up with a dead spider as a result. If anything, the corn starch method should be used.
 

boina

Lady of the mites
Active Member
Joined
Mar 25, 2015
Messages
2,217
They have the systems but it isn’t the same as clotting in mammals which is why they can bleed to death very easily while a similar injury to a mammal of similar size would be trivial. And many of those papers were using horseshoe crabs as their study organism, which have a more efficient clotting enzymes and proteins compared to land Arthropoda. The thing with hemolymph is it doesn’t use cellular structures to transport oxygen and it’s an open system. Making any wounds life threatening due to the lack of cells to block the opening. While our oxygen carrying RB cells get trapped in fibrin and platelets quickly plugging the wound. Spiders seep and seep until the enzymes and proteins activate in the hemolymph. Which takes much longer than ours. Which means they continue to bleed far far longer than mammals. Which as all T owners know can lead to death quickly. It is better to assume your T has no way to clot a bleeding wound than hope it seals on its own.

Besides if they could clot so well they would not need sphincters to keep from dying after shedding a leg. It’s just better as a T owner to treat any bleeding wounds as life threatening. A T can survive a piece of molt being stuck to their abdomen after gluing a wound. They can’t survive bleeding for minutes on end while a T owner hopes they clot up soon.
You pretty much make things up as you go along here. You can't just twist science so you won't have to admit you were wrong.

1. None of the papers used crabs. At least read it first.

2. There system is different from mammals and not as effective, yes.

3. We should assume they don't have any clotting system even though they have one so we don't let our spiders bleed to death??? You are joking, right?

I give up at this point. If you can't say you were wrong in the face of evidence any form of discussion is futile.
 

MikeofBorg

Arachnosquire
Joined
Dec 12, 2017
Messages
91
You pretty much make things up as you go along here. You can't just twist science so you won't have to admit you were wrong.

1. None of the papers used crabs. At least read it first.

2. There system is different from mammals and not as effective, yes.

3. We should assume they don't have any clotting system even though they have one so we don't let our spiders bleed to death??? You are joking, right?

I give up at this point. If you can't say you were wrong in the face of evidence any form of discussion is futile.
It’s a totally different system of what we think of as a clot. They have the clotting proteins and enzymes but not inert cells without a nucleus like our red blood cells. Our mamamilian RBCs start getting caught in fibrin and platelets. Spiders don’t have that feature in their clotting system. I’ll admit I was wrong saying they don’t clot. They just don’t clot like mammals, reptiles or birds do. Which makes a bleeding injury more likely to cause death than say in a Green anoles lizard of similar size. Which has red blood cells that clump together at the site of injury.

My point was it is better to assume they cannot clot then to hope their open circulatory system is able to seal the wound in time to stop the bleeding. I treat any bleeding wound on a Tarantula or any invertebrates as a medical emergency. I would not do that for my mammal or reptile pets unless the wound was deep or injured an artery.

@boina never said that they're as good as mammals at closing open wounds. You said that they can't clot "at all" which is an absolute. Even you later on said that they do have a clotting system.

Regardless, superglue still is not a good idea. I've seen many newbies try this method and end up with a dead spider as a result. If anything, the corn starch method should be used.
And I have seen it used and save a spiders life. Tissue glue however is a better choice. You can’t glob it on either. A toothpick is perfect for applying small amounts to seal the wound. If you grab the bottle and start squeezing it all over the wound you might get it in the book lungs, glue legs together etc. patience is a must. If you rush and use too much you will either injure the T more or cause more issues. If using tissue glue worries someone cornstarch is another great T lifesaver. It clumps better than standard flour and is non toxic. You just have to keep applying it until the bleeding subsided.

I did read the papers. At least two mentioned using horseshoe crabs as their study organism in the abstract and paper. They go into detail of how they harvest blood from them for study. They used horseshoe crabs due to their size and they have some interesting properties to their blood.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Top