EightBitSkunk
Arachnopeon
- Joined
- Nov 9, 2024
- Messages
- 1
I've had a dark fishing spider, dolomedes tenebrosus, for about a year. Her name is Archimedes.
I caught her inside my home last summer. She has molted three or four times, and this last one about two months ago. I believe she is fully sexually mature; She spun an egg sac about four weeks ago. I'm sure it's not fertile, she has had no outside contact, though I do wish to find her a mate of her species. (Additionally; how long will she live after her last molt? Sources vary, the most common one I'm reading is about a year. Is that correct?)
However the problem arises now that I am getting worried about food. I need to feed her. She is guarding the sac and I have let her alone for the most part. However she is getting terribly thin. She refuses any feed I give her- Big or small. I want to know if it is in her best interest to take the egg sac away and see if she will eat when it is gone? I doubt it, but I don't want to unnecessarily stress her out by taking it away.
Here's some photos. The one where she is laid out is the oldest, but it along with the one of her on the stone shows what her abdomen has been at usually, and here is what it is at now; The photo with her upside down and all the ones with the green+red veined leaves, were taken today.
If anyone has kept these before, can you let me know if she is critically thin? I generally keep her well fed but she is currently refusing food. It has been since Oct 13 since she last ate. I went on a camping trip that weekend and fed her a biiiig cricket, and when I came back she'd spun an egg sac. She's refused food since and I am getting terribly worried about the increasing tapering point of her back end. She is posturing by keeping her sac kept curled up between her front and her back, so her abdomen has been kept at a strange angle, which I think makes it look smaller than it normally is too, but I am also worried for her.
I also wish to know if it is ethical to release her after keeping her for so long. Originally I wanted to just study her, but she's too fascinating, I ended up keeping her. However with the knowledge that she is sexually mature now, is it more ethical to release her in the countryside where she probably had been before ending up in my house? So she can find a mate? Or will she have forgotten how to survive out there, is it better for her to keep her in her ten gallon?
Setup; Ten gallon tank with mesh+glass lid, humidity meter, (She gets misted if it dips below sixty five percent) wood logs and stones, coconut substrate mixed with sand + dirt + a bunch of springtails, a dish for water with climb-up things in case of falling in.
I caught her inside my home last summer. She has molted three or four times, and this last one about two months ago. I believe she is fully sexually mature; She spun an egg sac about four weeks ago. I'm sure it's not fertile, she has had no outside contact, though I do wish to find her a mate of her species. (Additionally; how long will she live after her last molt? Sources vary, the most common one I'm reading is about a year. Is that correct?)
However the problem arises now that I am getting worried about food. I need to feed her. She is guarding the sac and I have let her alone for the most part. However she is getting terribly thin. She refuses any feed I give her- Big or small. I want to know if it is in her best interest to take the egg sac away and see if she will eat when it is gone? I doubt it, but I don't want to unnecessarily stress her out by taking it away.
Here's some photos. The one where she is laid out is the oldest, but it along with the one of her on the stone shows what her abdomen has been at usually, and here is what it is at now; The photo with her upside down and all the ones with the green+red veined leaves, were taken today.
If anyone has kept these before, can you let me know if she is critically thin? I generally keep her well fed but she is currently refusing food. It has been since Oct 13 since she last ate. I went on a camping trip that weekend and fed her a biiiig cricket, and when I came back she'd spun an egg sac. She's refused food since and I am getting terribly worried about the increasing tapering point of her back end. She is posturing by keeping her sac kept curled up between her front and her back, so her abdomen has been kept at a strange angle, which I think makes it look smaller than it normally is too, but I am also worried for her.
I also wish to know if it is ethical to release her after keeping her for so long. Originally I wanted to just study her, but she's too fascinating, I ended up keeping her. However with the knowledge that she is sexually mature now, is it more ethical to release her in the countryside where she probably had been before ending up in my house? So she can find a mate? Or will she have forgotten how to survive out there, is it better for her to keep her in her ten gallon?
Setup; Ten gallon tank with mesh+glass lid, humidity meter, (She gets misted if it dips below sixty five percent) wood logs and stones, coconut substrate mixed with sand + dirt + a bunch of springtails, a dish for water with climb-up things in case of falling in.
