- Joined
- Feb 22, 2013
- Messages
- 3,295
Species: Nhandu coloratovillosus, subadult female
Size at time of molt: ~5" dls
My N. coloratovillosus recently molted, and as I always do, I got her fangs. This time, though, I made an interesting discovery. Both fangs are clearly growing back from a break. This was the first time she molted under my care, so I can only guess as to what happened. It seems as if the fang on the top was damaged much more recently than the bottom one.
Notice not only the deformation, but also how utterly dull they are. They are hardly sharper than the tip of a dull pencil. It's no wonder she had an abnormally large *crunch* when she took down prey. Well, that got me thinking - she always had trouble actually killing the prey... why is that? Well, here's why. Firstly, here's a normal venom duct, circled in red (picture of the bottom fang from above):
And now here's a picture of the top fang:
The top fang has a completely blocked venom duct. She was only delivering half of the venom payload that she usually would have. The photos may not be studio-quality, but certainly you all can see what I'm talking about. This is just an interesting anecdotal case study on damaged fangs and the lasting effects.
Note that even the "better" fang is still not perfect. For reference, here is the exact same magnification of an adult female T. stirmi fang. Notice how much sharper it is, even though it is magnitudes larger.
Size at time of molt: ~5" dls
My N. coloratovillosus recently molted, and as I always do, I got her fangs. This time, though, I made an interesting discovery. Both fangs are clearly growing back from a break. This was the first time she molted under my care, so I can only guess as to what happened. It seems as if the fang on the top was damaged much more recently than the bottom one.
Notice not only the deformation, but also how utterly dull they are. They are hardly sharper than the tip of a dull pencil. It's no wonder she had an abnormally large *crunch* when she took down prey. Well, that got me thinking - she always had trouble actually killing the prey... why is that? Well, here's why. Firstly, here's a normal venom duct, circled in red (picture of the bottom fang from above):
And now here's a picture of the top fang:
The top fang has a completely blocked venom duct. She was only delivering half of the venom payload that she usually would have. The photos may not be studio-quality, but certainly you all can see what I'm talking about. This is just an interesting anecdotal case study on damaged fangs and the lasting effects.
Note that even the "better" fang is still not perfect. For reference, here is the exact same magnification of an adult female T. stirmi fang. Notice how much sharper it is, even though it is magnitudes larger.
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if you figure out how that could happen please let us know.
