I've found my whip spider dead in pieces in her terrarium, what could happen?

[Gill Soriano]

Hi All, my wife an I had a semi 1 melt regular size whip spider, at the beginning is was just a "spider in a box" with the time we started to get to care about her as it where a dog or a cat, finally it was our pet. We used to feed her with crickets we use to bought on the pet store, they were bred in there so they were clean and healthy. We also placed inside other insects like woodlices, little geckos, little wasps and little roaches. In the end we just get rid of all of the rest and fed her with crickets only. She use to live in a terrarium we made with pieces of branches, little stones, earth, water container and her little tube like place.

Somehow, yesterday we took a look to her house to check everything was ok as usual and we were surprised because she wasn't there, and there's no way she could escape through the box, so what happened?! we asked, we looked for her in the dirt and we just found the other bugs and like, hundreds of little buggies like 1mm large, everywhere in the box. After an exhaustive search we finally found just the parts or extremities of the spider, like some legs, her fangs and mysteriously we never found her abdomen and the main part of her body. Again, she was closed and alone with this woodlices and bunch of little white micro bugs. What do you thing could happen??? Any suggestions, any theories?

Thanks

Gill

 

[basin79]

Hi All, my wife an I had a semi 1 melt regular size whip spider, at the beginning is was just a "spider in a box" with the time we started to get to care about her as it where a dog or a cat, finally it was our pet. We used to feed her with crickets we use to bought on the pet store, they were bred in there so they were clean and healthy. We also placed inside other insects like woodlices, little geckos, little wasps and little roaches. In the end we just get rid of all of the rest and fed her with crickets only. She use to live in a terrarium we made with pieces of branches, little stones, earth, water container and her little tube like place.

Somehow, yesterday we took a look to her house to check everything was ok as usual and we were surprised because she wasn't there, and there's no way she could escape through the box, so what happened?! we asked, we looked for her in the dirt and we just found the other bugs and like, hundreds of little buggies like 1mm large, everywhere in the box. After an exhaustive search we finally found just the parts or extremities of the spider, like some legs, her fangs and mysteriously we never found her abdomen and the main part of her body. Again, she was closed and alone with this woodlices and bunch of little white micro bugs. What do you thing could happen??? Any suggestions, any theories?

Thanks

Gill

If she definitely couldn't get out then you did indeed find her and not a moult and she died and got eaten.

 

[Gill Soriano]

If she definitely couldn't get out then you did indeed find her and not a moult and she died and got eaten.

But what could possibly kill her?

 

[schmiggle]

But what could possibly kill her?

How old and how big was she? Was she wild caught or captive bred? A lot of the time, people are sold old WC whip spiders and they quickly die from senescene alone.

 

[Gill Soriano]

How old and how big was she? Was she wild caught or captive bred? A lot of the time, people are sold old WC whip spiders and they quickly die from senescene alone.

She was a baby when we found her in a piece of wall we were remodeling, we live in a tropical zone. I estimate she was like 2 inches long without her long frontal legs. Yeah she was found wild. We are really intrigued because we can't explain the cause. When we were going to feed her we told she had escaped, but how? The terrarium has a lot of micro holes she didn't fit. Then digging in the earth we found her extremities only, the abdomen were missing. And hundreds of this white micro bugs all over

 

[schmiggle]

She was a baby when we found her in a piece of wall we were remodeling, we live in a tropical zone. I estimate she was like 2 inches long without her long frontal legs. Yeah she was found wild. We are really intrigued because we can't explain the cause. When we were going to feed her we told she had escaped, but how? The terrarium has a lot of micro holes she didn't fit. Then digging in the earth we found her extremities only, the abdomen were missing. And hundreds of this white micro bugs all over

Huh, that's quite odd. I wonder if she fell while trying to molt or something. You're sure she was a baby when you found her--she quickly grew larger and whatnot?

I guess it's also possible she contracted some kind of disease.

 

[Gill Soriano]

Huh, that's quite odd. I wonder if she fell while trying to molt or something. You're sure she was a baby when you found her--she quickly grew larger and whatnot?

I guess it's also possible she contracted some kind of disease.

Well, we had her for about 7 months and when we found her she was like 2 inches long including legs but not whips, then we saw her mold once, we even kept her exoesqueleton. The point is that if it were a decease the we should have find her in one piece and dead. But this wasn't the case, all her body part were everywhere, one leg here, another there and so...

 

[The Snark]

Not clarification of the post wording but of what happened. That sounds very bizarre. Like ants had their way with it but you would have noticed them. Please post if you get any more info.

 

[Gill Soriano]

As I said before, we found inside a lot of very little bugs like half the size of a flea. I thought they were little crickets but they aren't I don't have a clue about what this bunch of bugs could be.

 

[The Snark]

Oh oh. @schmiggle predatory mites?
Oh. You're in Mexico. Maybe. In the tropics we have micro ants about .5 mm that could do that job. Not in colder climes but maybe Mexico. The ones around here are ferocious and bite with the best of them.

 

[Gill Soriano]

OMG, predatory mites? What's that? I still have the earth where she use to stay, I might take a pic and see if this little bastards can be captured on it. Can you post an image of this mites you say so I can see if they look alike?

 

[schmiggle]

I don't know much about predatory mites, but tbh this sounds a lot like ants to me. Predatory mites wouldn't be likely to move bits around like that, I don't think.

 

[Gill Soriano]

Indeed they were mites. I've see some videos in YouTube and found that this bastards are parasitic predators. They are exactly like the ones we found on the terrarium, MITES ATE MY WHIP SPIDER!

 

[The Snark]

Well, quarantine or thoroughly clean out that enclosure for sure. A very sad turn of events. You will want to carefully inspect all other enclosures and whatever feeders you have and have had in the past few weeks or months. Magnifying glass time.
I've noticed when ants take apart exoskeletons here, when the connective tissues cut loose the parts can spring apart a little.

 

[Gill Soriano]

A shame really, we're going to miss "legs" R.I.P.

Thanks for all your support Snark and everybody.

I might buy a tarantula now...

 

[BenLeeKing]

I thought predatory mites more or less only eat small organisms like spring tails and other mites?
My guess is it probably died with reasons unrelated to the mites, and since the mites are scavengers, they came to the dead whipspider afterwards.

 

[Gill Soriano]

You put me to think again. But what could it be? There was nothing but a cricket and some little bugs inside. Not dangerous for her. And I found her dismembered and the extremities all over the terrarium but the abdomen.

 

[BenLeeKing]

You’d be surprised how dangerous a rogue cricket can be to to my molting whipspiders. It could be that the cricket some how managed to

 

[Gill Soriano]

But there were no cricket. Just the mits and some woodlices.

 

[BenLeeKing]

Then what do you mean by “nothing but a cricket”?

There was nothing but a cricket and some little bugs inside.

But isopods are also really efficient decomposers, so it’s them and the mites ripping the whipspider corpse to shreads, probably unrelated to cause of death.