# Update on Ryan's B. smithi



## dragontears (Nov 8, 2007)

Some of you may remember Ryan's male smithi having some issues a couple months ago.  Thread here:
http://www.arachnoboards.com/ab/showthread.php?t=103847

After his boy died, he gave the body to me to process for diagnostic.  As there is virtually no reference material for this kind of thing I had my doubts that a diagnosis could be reached and I was correct in that.  However, we could rule out parasites as no foreign matter was found in the body.

Since we couldn't reach a diagnosis, I decided to at least have a little fun with the opportunity and took some sections from the T and processed them for histopathology.  I took some pictures of what I found:

This is a cross section view of the dorsal portion of the abdomen just posterior to the pedicel.  I'm _assuming_ we're looking at the heart in the center there, but I'm not sure if the tissue to each side is also part of the heart or something else:






This is a close up of the center of the heart...you can see the striations that are characteristic of muscle tissue which is why I believe it to be the heart:






Next we have book lungs.  At least these were easy to identify...the lung is to the left in the picture and you can just see the testis in the upper right, I'm not sure what is between the lung and the testis:






This is a zoom of the lung:






The anus...complete with fecal matter ready to come out.  Unfortunately, I didn't get the entire tract in one plane so you can't follow the duct all the way out. 






Zoom of the anus:






Cross section of the urticating hairs:






I'm not sure what this is...They are much bigger than the urticating hairs and more spread out, but they are all over the outside of the spider instead of clumped in one area like the urticating hairs.  They appear to be sensory appendages:






Zoom:






Again...no clue...this was near the mouth:






Now onto my favorite pictures.....

This is the testis:






Zoomed in you can more clearly see the ducts for the sperm (what are they called in spiders?):






Zoomed in more you can see the sperm:






These are fun too...although I'm not exactly sure what I'm looking at.

These are silk glands:






...I'm not sure why some vacuoles have a gradient and some have a defined edge...my best guess is that the ones with the defined edge (like this one) have completed whatever the reaction is required to make the silk:






while the ones with the gradient (like the one on the right) have not finished yet:


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## Aunt Ant (Nov 8, 2007)

That is amazing to see. Thank you so much for sharing and describing these fascinating pictures :clap:


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## cheetah13mo (Nov 8, 2007)

Wow, that's the coolest stuff I've seen in some time. Thanks for sharing.


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## verry_sweet (Nov 8, 2007)

Thank you for the update on Ryan’s male. Shame you couldn’t pin point what happened to him.

But wow these pictures are amazing. Thank you so much for posting them


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## Snipes (Nov 8, 2007)

awesome! Poor boy though . Any more pics?


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## dragontears (Nov 8, 2007)

Snipes said:


> awesome! Poor boy though . Any more pics?


I'm working on more.  I tried to get some sagittal and cross sections of the hooks and bulbs but the fixative didn't penetrate the exoskeleton well and I just got mush.    I'm currently sectioning a sagittal section of the head (the other side, since the first try didn't work too well) and I'll post more pictures if I get anything interesting.  In the meantime, I'm vulturing around for Lori's male rosea to die so I can cut off his legs and palps and hopefully get better fixation and therefore better sections.  I'm really interested in seeing the inside of the bulbs. 

Yes, I'm a dork.  :8o


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## Talkenlate04 (Nov 8, 2007)

Holy crap that is awesome stuff!
Did anything come of the fluid I caught in the vial? 

Those are some awesome awesome pictures. :worship: :worship: :worship:


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## Mr. Mordax (Nov 8, 2007)

I never thought I'd see micrographs of tarantula sperm . . .

Awesome photos!  

By the way, nothing wrong with being a dork.


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## GailC (Nov 8, 2007)

Those are incredible! thanks for taking the time to post them for us.


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## dragontears (Nov 8, 2007)

talkenlate04 said:


> Holy crap that is awesome stuff!
> Did anything come of the fluid I caught in the vial?
> 
> Those are some awesome awesome pictures. :worship: :worship: :worship:


thanks!  No, we didn't find anything from the vial.  I think it may have gone bad...I should have told you to put it in the fridge.  My fault.


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## -Sarah- (Nov 9, 2007)

Wow!! Those are the most incredible shots I've ever seen! Thank you so much for sharing those! I'm sorry to hear about Ryan's _B. smithi_, though...

-Sarah


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## fartkowski (Nov 11, 2007)

WOW 
Awsome work.
Those pictures are great.


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