I thought about that... but given the stage of life it's in, I suspect it's less likely to be a cancerous-like growth.
You have to remember that they are not humans so the mutations may happen at different stages and different ways. And simply because of the fact that they do grow in stages might be a huge reason it got so much worse after the molt. I am just trying to think in terms of almost alien anatomy. Well whatever the case maybe, it is one messed up sling and I don't think, as much as I want too, that it is going to get any better even if it somehow does make it to its next molt. It got worse with the last molt. If you consider the second law of Entropy, which states, the disorder or entropy in the universe is continuously increasing; because of this and the fact that spiders, from what we know, don't really have will power. I don't thing that the little guy can do the work needed to correct his deformities. Some of you may disagree with me but that is where this is headed in my mind.
Also, if it was cancer, I would have expected someone else to have reported this before.
"you can't fight entropy, so why even try" 311 song, sorry I am a nerd. Poor little guy
And where would I put it once I mashed it? There is nothing resembling a normal mouth. He can't even drink.
Ok, so before T's molt their new exoskeleton grows beneath the old one, right? Once the molt happens or just before it happens, the new exoskeleton stops growing. So, a fully developed exoskeleton doesn't grow, it expands with the movement of the T. For instance when the T eats or drinks the abdomen gets bigger. The exoskeleton does not grow. If it is cancer, the effects of the cancer's growth would not show until the next molt. Just wondering, is there any actual living tissue in the exoskeleton itself? This is not including the spider inside of the skeleton. If there is no living tissue the exoskeleton would be cut off from nutrients and would not grow even under cancerous conditions or at least slow. For instance if a T gets a cut it bleeds and does not stop. Even if the the internal fluid coagulated the exoskeleton would not heal, no new exoskeleton would form to plug the breech. In every stage of growth there is a lot of cell growth occurring which give a lot of room for genetic mistakes. So, even if the T is young it could still be more susceptible to cancer. Just because humans normally do not get cancer until later in life does not mean a T could not get it at early stages. This is hard to explain, but does anyone get what I am trying to say?
True. I didn't think about that.:wall:
That is all true, but it's also true of any ingrowing problem with development/genetic deformity. This would also not show except during periods of moulting, since no major body changes really can happen except during those 'reveal' stages.
Strictly speaking, cancer would probably be a decrease in entropy. Multiple cells rapidly dividing and forming a large ball (read highly ordered) of idenical cells... that's a lot of order.
now we humans feel pain but how can we know that animals dont?dogs yelp when you step on them and tarantulas do get stressed.tarantulas may not be the smartest but they still have some form of feeling we just dont know what they are:?I'm sorry to hear that he isn't doing too well. I would just let him do his thing and see how things turn out. You have to remember they can not feel any pain.
On a brighter note. All five that I have from your egg sac are doing really well and just molted!
Bob