adopted a B. vagans... in very bad shape, it seems

[AneesasMuse]

I've been keeping my eye on a "Guatemalan Red Rump" at my local box chain pet store and today, they finally decided to relinquish it to me.

In 2 weeks, it has lost 2 legs.. the rear ones closest to its abdomen.. mysteriously. According to the most knowledgeable employee there, it starts at the very tip.. slowly diminishing.. then moves up to the next "joint", until the entire leg shrivels up and falls off.

Its abdomen is nearly totally bald and has been this way for at least 2 months, probably more. The abdomen is about the size of a dime now.. though it has been seen eating crickets. This is easily a 5" ..more like 6".. legspan tarantula........ with a dime sized abdomen and rapidly losing legs???

What is going on with this Brachy? Any ideas? Any suggestions?

Do you think my Exotics can actually help me, if I take it in? He's proven to be "iffy" with arachnids... although superb with all my reptiles.

Thanks in advance. I will try to borrow my neighbor's camera again this evening and get some pics of it. Maybe you can help me decide if the "boxing gloves" are big enough to show gender.


Thanks,
~Aminah

 

[AneesasMuse]

Could ..err, would.. high temps cause leg loss like I've described?


Thanks,
~Aminah

 

[Hedorah99]

Could ..err, would.. high temps cause leg loss like I've described?


Thanks,
~Aminah

They would have to be very high temps I would think. And then it would probably just die and not lose legs. What was the temp. it was kept at?

 

[AneesasMuse]

I don't really know... just speculating what could cause such damage so quickly. Petco stores tend to range in their amount of proper care, so there's actually no telling what she or he has been through.

 

[Nitibus]

Thanks in advance. I will try to borrow my neighbor's camera again this evening and get some pics of it. Maybe you can help me decide if the "boxing gloves" are big enough to show gender.

It has boxing gloves ? If it does it has matured out, and maybe just slowly dying away like many mature males do.

Pic's would help !

 

[KJE]

Was there any screen on the cage? It could have gotten stuck in the screen and lost its legs that way.

 

[Amanda]

I wonder if severe dehydration could cause something like that... like dropping unneeded appendages to conserve what little fluid it has left, just trying to maintain internal pressure?

 

[Hedorah99]

I wonder if severe dehydration could cause something like that... like dropping unneeded appendages to conserve what little fluid it has left, just trying to maintain internal pressure?

I had a bunch of T's die when my space heater went nuts during a business trip, the abdomen shriveled but the limbs seemed intact.

 

[Amanda]

Sounds like heat would have been the primary cause of their deaths though... not dehydration.

 

[Alice]

to me that vagans sounds like a mature male past his prime - they tend to refuse food and start losing legs. that's usually very close to the end. try to get pictures of his pedipalps and front legs - there should be hooks and boxing gloves if this is indeed the case.

btw: only mature males have boxing gloves of any kind, the pedipalps on non-mature males look like the female's.

 

[Nich]

Maybe you can help me decide if the "boxing gloves" are big enough to show gender.


Thanks,
~Aminah

It sounds like amature male dying of old age and stress....
If there are round points on the front pedipalps (foremost "legs") It is a dying male.

 

[M.F.Bagaturov]

As people told above You most possibly has a mature male.
The losing limbs are the sign of not only a bad keeping conditions but also of it's old age and unpossible to reproduct.
Losing money, in any words...

 

[ratz00]

Am inclined to go with the mature-male-about-to-die explanation. And unless you can actually be sure of that T's age, we can onlt speculate...

A thought came to mind. This maybe stupid, but since its a T keepers duty to share all info and experiences( no matter how young I am into the hobby ), I would like to share this and maybe I can learn something too. I had a G.aureostriata suffer something similar fate although it was just a sling. ---

The sling is about 1.5 cm only. It went through a bad molt, and I wasnt home to actually be able to help it out of its exuvium. When I got home, I saw it was just halfway out of the exuvium, but judging from the coloration of the sling ( it was already very pink instead of white ) I knew it had been like that for hours. So, I decided to do some guess work as to where the rest of its legs ended inside the old skin, and cut off from there so it could at least still spread its kegs and move around. As days when by, I saw the new legs expand in girth and length but not in the areas still covered by the old skin. Eventually, each leg's tip just atrophied, perhaps from constriction of hemolymph flow. Soon each leg became shorter as time went on. It couldnt move around anymore so I had to cut mealworms and actually put the slings prosoma on the bleeding part so it coud eat. It was all I could do from then. I watched as each leg got shorter and shorter like it was rotting and just eroding away. It died a week ago... after 3 weeks of constant tending. At least not from hunger. Its opisthosoma was bigger than it prosoma when it expired....

Just a thought that maybe the Vagans in question ( a real long shot ) could've had a bad moult in the past and some of the old skin never really came off and might have triggered atrophy in the hind legs... again, just thought from a novice... Hope I have not been presumptious... Just sharing and I hope, some light might still be shed for AneesasMuse, myself, and future enthusiasts regarding this matter...

thanks for indulging.

 

[AneesasMuse]

Unless the one particular employee at this store knows an approximate age on this T, no one knows.

Being that I am very new to tarantula keeping... I have 3 s'lings... and have only seen pics of larger T's, or those in deli cups at my local shows... I am still learning as I go.

This T doesn't have any "hooks" and what may be "boxing gloves" is very hard to distinguish with the present state of the T.

If it is a mature, or maturing, male... so be it. The important thing for me and this T is that it's not suffering the fate of living in a Petco with employees that are not very knowledgeable about its care. If it isn't a male after all, and its just had a rough time of it... now it has a chance to recover and live out a decent life.

As for losing out any money... I didn't lose a thing. The Petco wrote it off to me as a non-sellable item... basically, I adopted it.

ratz00, thanks for sharing that. It may come in handy some day.

 

[Nitibus]

How about a pic ?

 

[AneesasMuse]

If you go back to the original post, you will find that I no longer have a cooperative digital camera. I can take pics, but they will no longer load onto my pc. There are no updates or drivers for this problem, as my old HP is obsolete now.

If ..IF... I see my neighbor and can borrow their camera, I will get a pic up.

I would even buy a new camera if every spare cent didn't go toward a hefty Vet Fund for my many "rescues" and "normal" pets... or food, or housing, etc.


Sorry for any inconvenience to you

 

[Nich]

Unless the one particular employee at this store knows an approximate age on this T, no one knows.

Being that I am very new to tarantula keeping... I have 3 s'lings... and have only seen pics of larger T's, or those in deli cups at my local shows... I am still learning as I go.

This T doesn't have any "hooks" and what may be "boxing gloves" is very hard to distinguish with the present state of the T.

If it is a mature, or maturing, male... so be it. The important thing for me and this T is that it's not suffering the fate of living in a Petco with employees that are not very knowledgeable about its care. If it isn't a male after all, and its just had a rough time of it... now it has a chance to recover and live out a decent life.

As for losing out any money... I didn't lose a thing. The Petco wrote it off to me as a non-sellable item... basically, I adopted it.

ratz00, thanks for sharing that. It may come in handy some day.

Well, hate to put it like this, but...
If your truly concerned then google images of "mature male pedipalps" male T boxing gloves, and male t hooks" other than that, desication is out of the picture as it is a desert T, it is probably in the most humid envorment of its life. Old age/savage health deficiencies, nothing else to speculate. Thats from 4 years on the forums and bunch more as a "petco" zombie, and more than that at LPS's. Freeze the damn thing and be done with it.