Lump on abdomen??

[Stitch_geevi]

ok, i have a rosie, im not sure how old she is but i know shes atleast 6 or 7, and she's been acting very strangely lately..
she got loose a couple of days ago after i fed her and didnt close the tank right (having not touched the crickets), she was missing for about 8 hours. when i found her and got her back in i didnt notice anything except her abdomen still being small meaning she still hadnt eaten at all. i prodded the crickets in her direction, but she had no interest in them what-so-ever, all she cared about was trying to get back out.
today i noticed she did eat ONE of the crickets,but still gave the last one to another spider and moved her to a different tank, as she clearly doesnt want to be in hers for some reason. i've been keeping a close eye on her since this is very unusual behavior, and just noticed she has a dime-sized lump on the top left side of her abdomen.
i also notice it moves up and down slightly in the rhythm of a heartbeat when shes standing still.. i've never been able to see her heartbeat before, and i know even a normal one doesnt make the whole abdomen move up and down.

the reason im giving you all these details is so you may have a better idea (if any at all) if this is more likely to be an injury or an illness?? a sign of age?
another strange thing is, in addition to being very active and seemingly agitated, she's also webbing as she moves.. she's never done that before either..

does this sound like anything you've seen before?
any thoughts on the lump? her behavior?

thanks for any help you can give me,
-G

 

[Billeh]

Keep her in her home!!!! Moving her will only stress her out!
Make sure she has water, and just keep an eye on her. G.rosea has very strange behavior, but we can assume that since shes moving, she may be okay at the moment.
Personally I cannot help you about the lump, but you should post pictures for those who can!

 

[Prometheus]

ok, i have a rosie, im not sure how old she is but i know shes atleast 6 or 7, and she's been acting very strangely lately..
she got loose a couple of days ago after i fed her and didnt close the tank right (having not touched the crickets), she was missing for about 8 hours. when i found her and got her back in i didnt notice anything except her abdomen still being small meaning she still hadnt eaten at all. i prodded the crickets in her direction, but she had no interest in them what-so-ever, all she cared about was trying to get back out.
today i noticed she did eat ONE of the crickets,but still gave the last one to another spider and moved her to a different tank, as she clearly doesnt want to be in hers for some reason. i've been keeping a close eye on her since this is very unusual behavior, and just noticed she has a dime-sized lump on the top left side of her abdomen.
i also notice it moves up and down slightly in the rhythm of a heartbeat when shes standing still.. i've never been able to see her heartbeat before, and i know even a normal one doesnt make the whole abdomen move up and down.

the reason im giving you all these details is so you may have a better idea (if any at all) if this is more likely to be an injury or an illness?? a sign of age?
another strange thing is, in addition to being very active and seemingly agitated, she's also webbing as she moves.. she's never done that before either..

does this sound like anything you've seen before?
any thoughts on the lump? her behavior?

thanks for any help you can give me,
-G

My G.rosea has the same behavior as you have mentioned (except the lump) When this happens I change the substrate out of her cage and within a few days she is back to using her hide and pretty much stays in one place. The description of the lump doesn't sound good as spiders move around using fluid pressure (not muscular) So a lump on a water filled balloon would not be a good thing to have. I would just leave her in her enclosure and watch her abdomen for any signs of it returning to normal. Not much you can really do at this point. Post some picks of the lump so we can see what it looks like for a better diagnosis.

 

[bluefrogtat2]

every t i have ever owned that developed a"lump" on its abdomen has died in next few molts,sorry...
wish you luck
(each time the lump has become an open wound and the t's have perished shortlt after)
have had this ocurrence three times,all three being in adult t's too
andy

 

[Bjamin]

The could lump be the result of a fall with your T being on the loose if so I don't think there is much you could do I wouldn't move or mess with it and just try feeding every 2 weeks or so. Best wishes for her pulling through

 

[Stitch_geevi]

https://encrypted-tbn2.google.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcTktTm8eJO2J18lV18-BuW3MwS0HZRZCuLERH7qp2onj4LiLv6sTw

it's pretty much THAT, only further up toward her leg

 

[Stitch_geevi]

she did die yesterday, by the way.
here's some documentation of her behavior i managed to get.. this is not her death video, but she died a few hours later.

[video=youtube;2mLrM7t_dx8]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2mLrM7t_dx8&feature=youtu.be[/video]

 

[xhexdx]

Sorry she died.

I assume you got it from a pet shop? There's no real way to tell how old they are since pretty much every G. rosea you buy from a pet shop has been wild caught. She may have just been old.

I didn't see any lump in the video you posted. I'm certainly not accusing you of anything; I just couldn't see it in the video. It's possible it was a 'cyst' (for lack of a better term), or some other kind of fluid buildup underneath the exoskeleton. Whether it was the cause of death or not...no way to tell.

I'm going to start looking through some of this site's ancient threads to see if there are similar threads back then. It seems like it's only been the past year or so where all these spiders are getting weird lumps on their abdomen, so I want to see if that's truly the case or not.

Either way, I'm sorry for your loss. I personally don't hold much emotion towards tarantulas any more, but I know many people do.

 

[Stitch_geevi]

yea, petco actually, and she was my first. (i had known a thing or 2 about Ts for a while before that, so i asked the guy how old she was, expecting to hear 4 or 5 based on her size, and he tells me 6 months... HAHA!!:sarcasm: yyeeaa i got her outta there right away.)

but yea i was looking through some of those too, and they all end after like 3 or 4 posts, mostly consisting of "i dont know" and "probably not good" and a bunch of random suggestions that nobody really backed.. its a shame the gurus dont read these boards and try to help us out some, as some of them have either disabled their PM, or just wont write you back... sorry for being an annoying little noob, but nobody was born with a T in their hand, ya know.

and the lump doesnt show up well in that video because its not really on her side where you would see it clearly from that angle, it was more on the top. and with the light in this room and the quality of that camera, i wasnt expecting it to show up.. but as i said, it was extremely similar to that picture i posted the link to further up. the vid was just to document her behavior, which i think is a little more alarming than a lump anyway.

oh and by the way, THANKS EVERYONE for responding and trying to help. much appreciated

 

[SC Tarantulas]

Did she have this lump before the escape?

 

[Stitch_geevi]

no, thats why i was thinking it might have been an injury from a fall. but unless her behavior is unrelated, it was abnormal of her to even escape in the first place.
when i first got her there were times when she would climb to the top of the tank and be really restless, but then all i had to to was take her out, let her walk around on my bed for a bit, and then she'd "fall asleep" on my chest and be fine for the next few weeks.. but 90% of the time she wouldnt climb.
this time not only did she get out, but she really wanted nothing to do with the ground at all.. she would be standing on a surface and have her legs all the way extended, elevating herself off the ground as much as possible, and when she wasnt doing that, she was looking for a wall to climb.

do they have instincts that tell them to leave and find a safe place to die when its getting close to their time?

 

[xhexdx]

I'm sure they have instincts that tell them when something is physically wrong with them, but as far as whether those instincts tell them specifically to find a safe place to die, I have no idea.

They're pretty basic animals though - stimulus/response, cause/effect, that's about it.