Another Larvae Disaster

[petitegreeneyes]

I am about to give up on wild caughts. On Friday my Aphonopelma bicoloratum had a larvae bust out of her abdomen. The shame of it was that she had just molted a week ago and was so colorful. Last month or two it was my Haplopelma minax and now my A.bicoloratum. Why does this keep happening to me and why does it have to be some of my all time favorites!!!!! At least my Phormictopus cancerides is CB after I checked the invoice. Thank god because she just shed too and wow what colors she has.

 

[kosh]

wow!! that kinda makes me think of the movie ALIEN!!!! what kind of larvae was it?? and how did it get in there?? sounds kinda suprising that the spider didnt exhibit any symptoms of some sort of parasitic larvae growing inside it and it was able to moult and all just fine??!?!?
do the larvae not eat the spider from the inside out?? seems like this would make the spider show some signs of this or something??:?
perhaps you could keep that larvae and see what it turns in to....

 

[Wade]

Did you save those larvae? I'm sure there's sombody at the ATS that would be interested in studying them...

I'm interested to know if A. bicoloratum occurs outside Mexico...if not, that means your spider was probably smuggled illegally if it's wild caught. I'm not passing judgement or anything (hell, for all I know some of my T's may have been smuggled), but I'm surprised that whoever sold it to you admitted it was wild caught. Most of the time, they'll claim it was captive bred...

Wade

 

[King_Looey]

There are plenty of captive bred around, if you want to pay cheap, and go wild caught, then you run the risk of this happening.

 

[petitegreeneyes]

Larvae response

Neither of my spiders showed any signs of something inside of them and eating them. The bloodleg ate and shedded just fine like nothing was wrong. I did try to save the first larvae from my Thai black but I wouldn't let it continue to eat my dead spider and even though I fed it crickets it died. I was also afraid of maybe it hatching and some sort of bugs getting to my other spiders. I was too upset on my second occurence with this problem to try and keep this one alive so my fiance took it outside and set it on fire.(I was really mad at the larvae and wanted it to feel some pain too)!
Now I do know this can happen with wild caughts and by no means was the bloodleg cheap. I am aware that this species costs money and I did pay for her dearly!!!!!!!! But you know lightning isn't suppose to strike in the same place twice and it did for me . On the invoice it did however say wild caught for her, or else maybe there is something going around at the place I got her from attacking the spiders!!!!!!!!:?

 

[kosh]

surely some of the "educated" ones that frequent this site know what the heck these parasites are??
and how they got there??

 

[MrDeranged]

Most likely, it was some kind of wasp larvae. Unfortunately, when dealing with WC, you never know what surprises you might be getting, could be an eggsac, could be a parasite. That's why CB cost more. You're guaranteed no unwanted surprises.

Scott

 

[kosh]

yeah a wasp would sound reasonable.....but i am curious as to how it got there?? did the wasp temporarily paralyze the T to lay the egg or did it just sting the thing and lay the egg with the sting....i think it is fascinating how the T seemed totally oblivious...and i wonder how much of the inside of the T was consumed before it killed the T?? can a T go around half dead with half its body missing like a roach??

 

[Wade]

I believe pepsis wasps generally bury the tarantulas, making it unlikley that they would be collected and enter the pet trade. Whatever these are, I'd suspect it's not a pepsis. Maybe some other wasp, or even a fly. This is why it's important to try to save things like this, regardless of how repulsive they are. It would be a good thing to learn more about the creatures that threaten tarantulas. Rearing the parasites to adulthood is probably more than most people want to go through, but preserving the larvae in a jar of alcohol is quite easy, and probably very unpleasant for the grub itself

Wade

 

[King_Looey]

Disable it, and feed it to another of your spiders. Eaten by the very things that gave you life. So ironic.

 

[petitegreeneyes]

=D Hey King_Looey,
I really liked that saying of yours,"Eaten by the very thing that gave you life"

 

[Arachnopuppy]

Tarantulas can live for some time after its abdomine is removed or damaged. It is like an ant. Try taking off the abdomine and it still runs around.

 

[King_Looey]

If that happened, i would put the spider in the freezer, more humane.