Amblypygi lost its whip and white splotches on exoskeleton with mold growth in tank

Blackbird

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Sep 29, 2019
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10
Sssoo I'm really worried right now for my beautiful Damon Medius baby boy Merlin. I had some issues with him not eating before but I switched out his food from Dubia roaches to crickets last week and he has taken one since then.

Now another problem har turned up. Or, well, 3.

First off he has lost a whip! It was already halfway broken when I got him but when I checked in this morning the whole whip was gone, he still had it 3 days ago for sure. I'm always very careful with him so I have no idea what happened, when I took him out to check on him I also noticed he was acting very very clumsy and lethargic, and there were faint white splotches on his body.

My first thought was mold or fungi of a sort, and when I went back to check on the tank I indeed found white splotches of mold on his piece of wood, right where he likes to usually hang out!

I'm really worried now, is it posssible for mold to grow on amblypygi? What possible reasons are there for them losing a whip just like that? Also how do I take care of the mold on the wood?

I could switch out the wood altogether but I won't have an opportunity to do so until later this week, and if I took it out now he wouldn't have any vertical surface to hang on, so I'm feeling really lost and worried now.

Help very much appreciated! I am absolutely head over heels in love with my little boy and I want to provide him with the best care I can.
 

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The Snark

Dumpster Fire of the Gods
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The white on wood is a fungi. The main hazard that it presents to animals is it can obstruct the lungs. In humans this can contribute to pneumonia. I understand book lungs are also susceptible.
As for eradicating that mold on/in wood, I've tried everything. All our doors had it. The rhizomes can be as deep as 1/2 inch in the wood and the spores are pretty much immune to all fungicides and other toxic nasties. After about 10 years of watching our doors turn powdery white I found one cure: a propane torch. Played back and forth over the wood to keep from scorching until the rhizomes get cooked and the spores die. Around 700 F. Baking wood in an oven will retard the fungi, but eventually some spores will wake up and restart the cycle.
 

mantisfan101

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Replace that piece of wood with a big sheet of corkbark or styrofoam. Try to cover at least one side of the enclosure so it had somewhere to hide. I don’t see anything wrong, it is almost 100% a wild caught specimen and it will be stressed out for a while. Do not handle it and leave it alone. Keep it extremely moist and NEVER let the substrate dry out. If you ever see it on or near the bottom, increase the moisture content as much as possible. Flooding the substrate seems to help.
 

Sikalisko

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Aug 4, 2019
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I suggest just letting it chill in its terrarium for now and stop handling it too often since it easily stresses them out (I know it's not that convincing considering my avatar for this forum is like that, sexing them has been the only time I've handled them by so far though :) ). Stressed out and sick animals have darker colouration as they have lost that waxy looking secretion on their exosceleton. If it's getting duller and more tan colouration, it means it's getting enough moisture and food and it's recovering from the shipping. That's nothing to worry about I think. I've noticed my Damons had similar whitish spots, especially those from Ghana population but I'm not too worried about it since they otherwise look healthy to me. And well, there's very little you can do about it since it's likely something they've been carrying already before they got caught by bug collectors and shipped to western pet markets.

When I was sexing my Damon specimens (I have 7 of them), some of them pretended to be dead and hardly moved until they thought it was a good moment to try to escape, usually when I was putting them back to their terrariums. Maybe yours is trying to fool you as well since it didn't manage to escape or stay hidden? My whippies aren't acting particularly clumsy when I happen to spot them moving inside their terrariums though.

If the whip was already broken, maybe there wasn't good circulation of oxygen and nutrients for the tissue. In that case it was probably beneficial for your whip spider to remove it and regrow it during the next molt.

This next bit is just my opinion as a soon graduating biologist (hopefully), I don't have years of experience growing arachnids in captivity. Many amblypygid species, yours included, live in moist forest floor and hides in bark crevices, under rocks and hollow trunks. These all can have lots of decomposing organic material in them and amblypygids are in prolonged contact with different kinds of molds in these natural habitats. Unlike tarantulas that naturally live in holes dug in soil with much less organic stuff in them, whip spiders' immune system should be able to deal with any molds they come into contact with. Maybe purely cave dwelling species are an exception? Somehow tarantula keepers still prefer using coco fiber and other completely organic substrates but maybe that's just because it's all "natural" and has good moisture retaining capabilities?

Anyway, there are even studies about what kind of possibly beneficial fungal species there growing on their exosceletons. Here's link to one such article, it doesn't contain the full paper though. You can probably find some way to download it if you get really interested about it. I might be wrong but I think I've quickly skimmed through some other paper about fungi growing on some whip spider species as well: https://www.researchgate.net/public..._exoskeleton_as_a_substrate_for_fungal_growth

You might want to switch your piece of wood at some point though. It might get a bit unsightly at some point and some mold species produce lots of spores that are harmful to constantly breathe in. At that point it might start to become too much even to your whip spider that can't just move to different piece of wood if it doesn't like it there. But personally I wouldn't be worried if it's only that amount and the whole piece of wood won't become moldy. Don't try to get rid of the mold from that piece of wood and replace it instead. Any chemical that is harmful to molds is likely harmful to your whip spider as well. If you kill off the mold by boiling it, it would just regrow back fast since the rotting mycelia would provide easy nutrients for regrowth and there's always some spores around ready to grow when they land on a suitable substrate.

That's my opinion on your situation anyways, maybe more knowledgeable keepers have better info and correct my take on this and I will learn something new as well.

Edit: Too many "at that point"s in the second last paragraph now that I re-read my reply. But at this point it's already too late to fix the text since I feel lazy :D
 
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wizentrop

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Ok, I'm going to calm you down - everything is fine.
If the whip leg was already partially broken, the whip spider self-broke it up to the knee and that's normal. All whip spiders have a breaking point in the knee (in all of the legs), and if they suffer an injury they drop that leg and regenerate it over the next molt. The next time this animal molts it will have a new whip, but it will be much shorter in length, and it will take a few subsequent molts to grow it back close to normal length - they never reach actual normal length after breaking.

As for the mold, I wouldn't be too worried. Amblypygi are not very susceptible to fungi, as opposed to spiders and scorpions. Some of them live in very moldy environments while other slow growing species have fungi and algae growing right on their body. If you are worried you can change the wood piece, but it's not much of a big deal to the whip spider.

What you do need to worry about, is whether your animal is feeding well. That is the best indicator for a happy whip spider. Plus it encourages them to molt and repair themselves, which is always good.
 

Blackbird

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Sep 29, 2019
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Thank you all for your replies!

@mantisfan101 I mist the tank almost daily and the substrate is always very very moist, so there shouldn't be an issue there.

@Sikalisko Thank you for your reply! You make a good point with the mold, I'm going to try to relax a bit from my little panic attack there. I got Merlin at an expo about 4-5 months ago, so he's not exactly recovering from any shipping at this point. I don't think he's playing dead to be honest, while he was a bit skittish at the beginning of our relationship he has calmed down considerably.

I'll be honest I've probably been handling him a bit too much and that might have stressed him out, I'll make sure to leave him alone in the future unless it's necessary, for example if I'm gonna be switching out his wood. Stressing him out is the absolute last thing I want to do.

@wizentrop Thank you for the reply, it's much appreciated! He took a cricket last week but before that he had been refusing food for about 2 months or maybe more, so I was being very worried there, but honestly it just seems like he was too scared of the Dubia roaches. He avoided them and skittered away, but with the cricket I left it in overnight and it was a mushy, molding piece of insect intestines the next day, so i'm hoping that issue has been cleared up now. Going to give him another one tonight and see how it goes.
 

Albireo Wulfbooper

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I'll be honest I've probably been handling him a bit too much and that might have stressed him out, I'll make sure to leave him alone in the future unless it's necessary, for example if I'm gonna be switching out his wood. Stressing him out is the absolute last thing I want to do.
In general, it's not recommended to handle them. Once in a while won't hurt, if you're careful to ensure a fall isn't possible and if you allow the animal to climb onto you without forcing it, but handling will never be a fun experience for them. Mine never come out unless I'm cleaning their enclosure, and even then I'll let them sit on their styrofoam unless they choose to climb onto my hand while I'm pulling it out. This isn't a pet you get for snuggles :)
 

Blackbird

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Sep 29, 2019
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In general, it's not recommended to handle them. Once in a while won't hurt, if you're careful to ensure a fall isn't possible and if you allow the animal to climb onto you without forcing it, but handling will never be a fun experience for them. Mine never come out unless I'm cleaning their enclosure, and even then I'll let them sit on their styrofoam unless they choose to climb onto my hand while I'm pulling it out. This isn't a pet you get for snuggles :)
Oh certainly! I leave him be most of the time, I've mostly handled him when I wanted to introduce him to my friends but seeing as they are all properly acquainted now, I have been leaving him alone. Most handling was done in the beginning when I still had some figuring out to do with the tank. I can assure you that I am very careful with him, he's such a fragile little creature. Oddly enough he seems to recognise my smell and seek me out, especially my face, he loves climbing up to my face. In the same manner he instantly recognizes his tank and climbs on over. Very fascinating little criters.
 

Ew678

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Feb 7, 2023
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I recommend decapitating the prey to help feed them, my whip spiders wouldn’t eat live crickets for a while as they usually ignored them, I switched to using decapitated crickets because the insides are attractive to them( I also feel bad for the crickets who get eaten alive) .as for the leg, my male lost a whip and a walking leg from shipment but they slowly began to regrow after a few molts. I would occasionally get mold in the tank but I would just remove and replace the parts that had mold
 

Ultum4Spiderz

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I recommend decapitating the prey to help feed them, my whip spiders wouldn’t eat live crickets for a while as they usually ignored them, I switched to using decapitated crickets because the insides are attractive to them( I also feel bad for the crickets who get eaten alive) .as for the leg, my male lost a whip and a walking leg from shipment but they slowly began to regrow after a few molts. I would occasionally get mold in the tank but I would just remove and replace the parts that had mold
3 years too late , guillotine of crickets lmao 🤣 .. off with the head !!
 
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