Help! Stuck in a molt

[Arachne]

I've got a little male black widow and he's stuck in a molt. One of his front legs is stuck at the first joint. I've read about what to do for tarantulas stuck in molts, but does the same apply for other spiders? The poor little guy has been trying to pull his leg out, but nothing is working. I put some water in his enclosure to try and raise the humidity, but I don't think that is going to help. It's been too long. Should I snip his leg? Can he stop fluid loss and will he regenerate the leg? I don't think I can try to get his leg out of the exuvium because it's so tiny. His web is also in the way, although that's less of a concern cuz he could re-build. Any advice???


Ara

 

[NRF]

I don´t think it is possible to help the leg out of the excuvium. What do you mean by "the first joint"? The best would be to make the leg break (by pulling) between the coxa and the trochanter. That´s the place where the spider usually would autotomise it´s leg, and the loss of hemolymph would be very little. If you cut the leg somewhere else the hemolymph will anyway coagulate quite fast but sometimes it may leed to collaps of the rest of the legs. This happened once with an Agelena labyrinthica but it drank up the hemolymph and recovered after a while. A couple of days ago I had a Tetragnatha dearmata which got stuck with four legs and one pedipalp and all of its abdomen in the excuvium. I broke the pedipalp but i could not get the spider out of the rest of its old skin and I had to kill it.
I don´t want to be responsible for anything that happens to your widow-man but I think you have to break its leg. And it will do well without one leg. But whatever you do try to give it something to drink before. It might already be exhausted.

Good luck!

 

[Arachne]

Thanks for the advice, NRF. I got home from work and put some water in there for him, which he drank right away. Then I got ready to cut the leg. I had to snip through some of his web first, and the poor little guy got so freaked out at my approach that he started running around in circles until he snapped the leg off himself. Then he retreated into his little hideout. He seems to be doing OK now. I put some more water in there for him. Hopefully he will be fine.

Thanks again!


Ara