- Joined
- Jun 26, 2007
- Messages
- 331
The following story happened to me about 4-5 years ago. At the time of the occurrence, my group of friends and I had just began to learn about tarantulas and didn't have any idea what had happened.
At the pet store I work at one of my employees had asked me to capture the three pink toe tarantulas that were living in the 30 gallon tall aquarium that he was about to clean. He was actually pretty excited to try capturing them himself, but he wanted me to demonstrate how I went about it after one had intimidated him with the way they seem to slam their little feet down (thrump-thrump-thrump) as they dash around on the vertical glass.
I showed him how I carefully, but quickly bring an 8 ounce deli container down on top of the Pink Toe and then coax it onto the deli container lid. This was a nearly full grown WC individual that had a legspan almost exactly the diameter of the deli container but he went in with little protest. However, once he was in the container and sealed, he began raising and slamming down each foot in succession going around in a circle about it's body. It did this very quickly and increased in speed until it looked like a child's spinning top winding down, all the while slamming each foot so hard, it created a loud thrumming.
As it's speed and thrumming came to a crescendo, all of a sudden it stopped abruptly and, as far as I could tell, died right then.
I opened the container and removed the limp, lifeless little corpse and inspected it. There were no obvious signs of whatever was wrong, not that I would have recognized them back then, anyways. I placed it in a KK that I had misted lightly to see if it recovered, but it did not stir at all after that.
I related the story to my vet and he had no explanation. I had absolutely no idea what had happened, so I referred to the story as the Dance of Death.
I have since learned quite alot about tarantulas and believe that I have a very plausible theory about what happened, and I will post that later but first I would like to hear if any of you have any theories about this mystery.
:? :? :? :? :?
At the pet store I work at one of my employees had asked me to capture the three pink toe tarantulas that were living in the 30 gallon tall aquarium that he was about to clean. He was actually pretty excited to try capturing them himself, but he wanted me to demonstrate how I went about it after one had intimidated him with the way they seem to slam their little feet down (thrump-thrump-thrump) as they dash around on the vertical glass.
I showed him how I carefully, but quickly bring an 8 ounce deli container down on top of the Pink Toe and then coax it onto the deli container lid. This was a nearly full grown WC individual that had a legspan almost exactly the diameter of the deli container but he went in with little protest. However, once he was in the container and sealed, he began raising and slamming down each foot in succession going around in a circle about it's body. It did this very quickly and increased in speed until it looked like a child's spinning top winding down, all the while slamming each foot so hard, it created a loud thrumming.
As it's speed and thrumming came to a crescendo, all of a sudden it stopped abruptly and, as far as I could tell, died right then.
I opened the container and removed the limp, lifeless little corpse and inspected it. There were no obvious signs of whatever was wrong, not that I would have recognized them back then, anyways. I placed it in a KK that I had misted lightly to see if it recovered, but it did not stir at all after that.
I related the story to my vet and he had no explanation. I had absolutely no idea what had happened, so I referred to the story as the Dance of Death.
I have since learned quite alot about tarantulas and believe that I have a very plausible theory about what happened, and I will post that later but first I would like to hear if any of you have any theories about this mystery.
:? :? :? :? :?
