Does she look pre-molt to you?

worm's girl

Arachnoknight
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heres my skeleton, she hasnt eaten in a while and i took this shot after she got all irritated with me removing a cricket she wasnt going to eat. i noticed she looked a little shiney, and i heard or read somewhere i thought that they get shiney and leak from their joints if they're pre-molt. what do you guys think?
 
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edesign

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I dunno, I've never paid attention to the legs when looking for premolt indicators. How does the abdomen look? Darkened up at all?
 

worm's girl

Arachnoknight
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well it was nearly black to begin with, so there isnt a notable difference
 

Moltar

ArachnoGod
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I guess this species is hard to tell visually if a molt is imminent. Everything is dark except the carapace and the leg striping. Since mine just molted i can now see the difference but i was mystified before the molt. Now the femurs are this inky almost blue jet black with the rest of the legs only slightly less dark. Yellow leg stripes are almost orange and the carapace is very light.

The dark parts of the t were kinda dusty by comparison before the molt. Also there was the mottling on the carapace that's not there now. Since our t's are siblings i'd say to expect the molt soon. Don't bother to try to feed it for at least a week (2?), keep the humidity up and just wait. Mine returned to it's 2-weeks abandoned hide and started webbing and digging and webbing more in the 24 hours before the molt.
 

julesaussies

Arachnobaron
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My E. murinus is an insane eater. When she didn't eat right away i thought something was up. i removed the crickets. i offered her just one the following week and again she showed no interest so i removed that one as well. i also got the opportunity to get a good look at her abdomen and while they don't kick hairs off their abdomen, i could see with a flashlight that her skin was in fact very, very, black. She molted two days later. Try shining a flashlight against the grain of the hairs on her abdomen and see if you can see the color of her skin.
 

worm's girl

Arachnoknight
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My E. murinus is an insane eater. When she didn't eat right away i thought something was up. i removed the crickets. i offered her just one the following week and again she showed no interest so i removed that one as well. i also got the opportunity to get a good look at her abdomen and while they don't kick hairs off their abdomen, i could see with a flashlight that her skin was in fact very, very, black. She molted two days later. Try shining a flashlight against the grain of the hairs on her abdomen and see if you can see the color of her skin.
ok i'll try that...she's going on 3 weeks no food and very little water. but i guess since her abdomen still looks normal size that shes ok
 

Moltar

ArachnoGod
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Don't sweat it Wormsgirl. Soon you'll come home to find a scene kinda like this:

 

worm's girl

Arachnoknight
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isnt she beautiful

check her out... in the last pic you can see the fangs are still white and shes all fuzzy, i think she looks awesome! this is exciting for us as she is the biggest/oldest t we have, our 2yr old obt died after a bad molt not long after we bought her so we're super glad this one made it through
 
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P. Novak

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Wow she is absolutely stunning! Congrats! She must be around 6" now!
 
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