My O. schioedtei has... disappeared?!?

SonsofArachne

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I never screwed the lids on cause it disturbs the spiders taking them off when I go to feed them. Well now they are all screwed on about 1/2 way..
You can put a weight on them if you don't want to screw them down. I re-use heat packs on my kritter keeper lids so I don't have to pop them open every time. I haven't lost one yet (knock on wood).
 

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AphonopelmaTX

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Honestly, she's just, well... gone. The enclosure is empty - and closed! I certainly have made mistakes in not closing an enclosure properly a few times over the years and had a few escapes that way, but in each and every case I found the enclosure open and I knew the spider had gotten out and how it had gotten out.

In this case I have a fully and safely closed enclosure - and no spider. The enclosure was never left open, I'm absolutely sure of that. If I had found it even a little bit open I would have gone looking for the spider, making sure it was still there, but there never was a breach in security. I took the cage apart yesterday because nothing in there had changed for months - no new web, no excavation, and I wanted to make sure... well, I made sure the spider was gone. The enclosure was absolutely secure - it was actually the first European glass enclosure I ever set up for an Asian arboreal and I was a bit paranoid and not even a sling could have gotten out of that, let alone a subadult O. schioetei.

Now, my O. schioedtei was very, very reclusive, maybe the most reclusive of all. The last time I've seen her was several months ago. I remember her abdomen looked weird - asymmetrical, and I remember I wasn't sure about her health. She also was in premolt, moving very slow for that species. I found a very old molt in there, broken and in pieces, so she must have molted at some point. I also found a live Dubia in there... and the last time I've fed her is quite a while back (months ago). Can that Dubia have eaten the spider, like completely and without a trace??? Maybe with some help from the usual cleaner crew? Usually I don't worry about live prey with arboreals because they make thick cocoons to molt in that no Dubia can get in - or, more often, they just kill the prey they don't want and dump it in the water dish. Maybe in this case the O. schioedtei was sick and didn't kill the Dubia or make a perfect cocoon and got killed and completely consumed by the Dubia? Do you think that's possible?

Does anyone have any better ideas what happened to my spider? I'm sure she has been missing or dead for weeks or even months already and I just never noticed.
I admit I skipped reading through all three pages in this post, but wanted to chime in say I had this exact same thing happen to a fairly large Pelinobius muticus many years ago, sometime between 2001 and 2004. It was the strangest thing. It was burrowed in several inches of peat moss in a container with two latches and one day it was just gone. There were no prey items in with it or anything. I ended up having to dump the whole container out and sift through all of the peat moss to see if I could find a dead body or pieces of a molt or something, but I found nothing. It just disappeared. The container was never left opened or unlatched so an escape was unlikely. It escaping through the ventilation holes would have been impossible since the tarantula was maybe 4 inches and the holes were 1/4 inch. I remember the size of the ventilation holes I drilled since I use the same size drill bit to this day. The case of the disappearing P. muticus is still a mystery to this day and I have never experienced anything like it since.
 

boina

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I admit I skipped reading through all three pages in this post, but wanted to chime in say I had this exact same thing happen to a fairly large Pelinobius muticus many years ago, sometime between 2001 and 2004. It was the strangest thing. It was burrowed in several inches of peat moss in a container with two latches and one day it was just gone. There were no prey items in with it or anything. I ended up having to dump the whole container out and sift through all of the peat moss to see if I could find a dead body or pieces of a molt or something, but I found nothing. It just disappeared. The container was never left opened or unlatched so an escape was unlikely. It escaping through the ventilation holes would have been impossible since the tarantula was maybe 4 inches and the holes were 1/4 inch. I remember the size of the ventilation holes I drilled since I use the same size drill bit to this day. The case of the disappearing P. muticus is still a mystery to this day and I have never experienced anything like it since.
This is really interesting, thank you for sharing. Sometimes thing can obviously be really mysterious.
 

Dorifto

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Did you check all the substrate? One day rehousing my ceratogyrus, I thought that she escaped. But no... while checking the substrate she suddenly jumped out.
 

boina

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Did you check all the substrate? One day rehousing my ceratogyrus, I thought that she escaped. But no... while checking the substrate she suddenly jumped out.
Of course. I dumped the substrate out and sifted through it.
 

Arachnophoric

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Reminds me of my own "escape" debacle - N. incei disappeared from her enclosure the night after a rehouse. I opened it, looked for burrows, lifted/examined corkbark, and the T was nowhere to be found. Tore apart my bedroom thinking she'd managed to push the lid up enough to squeeze out on the end I had forgotten to latch shut.
Fortunately, my story had a happier ending; I came home after work the same day to find the T safe and sound in her enclosure. Still have no idea where she had been hiding in her enclosure that I didn't see her or accidentally grab her/squish her. Glad I had left the enclosure set up to be prepared if I found her again, rather than tossing her out by accident with the substrate.

I'd bet money that the molt was actually the scant remains of the T after the dubia and cleaning crew had months to snack on it. Perhaps you were right to question her health and she never made it through that premolt. Sorry for your loss, I always start getting a antsy if I go longer than month without seeing any sign of life from one of my more reclusive Ts.
 
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