Paralyzed spider?

[Setsunadiava]

I have a female Adanson's House Jumping Spider. She is about 8 months old. For the past week she has been completely still like dead but her legs are still straight and not curled in like a dead spider’s would. She also moves her front legs slowly sometimes. She had been slipping off the side of her enclosure for the past few days before she stopped moving. She had eaten a small cricket two weeks ago too.
Does anyone have any idea what might be happening to her?
she’s my first ever pet spider, I got her at a low point in my life and she’s very dear to me. I really wish there were vets for arachnids. I feel really helpless unable to do anything to help her. I would be so grateful for any sort of advice.

This is how she looks right now

 

[ForTW]

Yeah umm.... the freezer.
Sounds Like dying of old age.

 

[Setsunadiava]

I was prepared for that inevitability, but I honestly hoped I had more time with her.

 

[ForTW]

Try to give her some water.
I feed the old ages with honey water. Good source of energy and maybe a last, sweet meal.
But to be honest, just to keep them alive for your ego is not the nicest thing to do.

 

[Setsunadiava]

To be honest, I thought she might be going though a molt at first. I read they live up to 2 years. But if it is her time, I wouldn’t want her to hold on in pain.

 

[egyptiancrow]

She has DKS. This is usually from a bad feeder or wild caught feeder, or pesticide or chemical like soap, cleaner, incense, smoke getting into her enclosure. There is a 99.9999% fatality, that is to say, if any of them have ever survived, i have never seen it. I know some larger spiders can come back from dks but i have never seen a jumper do it.

I always make sure to sanitize everything and avoid wild feeders, as well i dont put lotion or soaps on my hands or in the enclosure, im not sure if you did anything that would be an obvious cause or not, i do believe sometimes DKS is caused by a bacteria infection or buildup in the spider with no discernable cause. Even with my very careful husbandry i have had one spider pass away from DKS out of my 300. I believe it was bc i left a piece of paper towel in for 4 days. she had built her molt hammock with it and i didnt want to tear it up and mess with her molting. But... better safe than sorry. now i pull them all out every two days.

Sorry for your loss

 

[Biollantefan54]

She has DKS. This is usually from a bad feeder or wild caught feeder, or pesticide or chemical like soap, cleaner, incense, smoke getting into her enclosure. There is a 99.9999% fatality, that is to say, if any of them have ever survived, i have never seen it. I know some larger spiders can come back from dks but i have never seen a jumper do it.

I always make sure to sanitize everything and avoid wild feeders, as well i dont put lotion or soaps on my hands or in the enclosure, im not sure if you did anything that would be an obvious cause or not, i do believe sometimes DKS is caused by a bacteria infection or buildup in the spider with no discernable cause. Even with my very careful husbandry i have had one spider pass away from DKS out of my 300. I believe it was bc i left a piece of paper towel in for 4 days. she had built her molt hammock with it and i didnt want to tear it up and mess with her molting. But... better safe than sorry. now i pull them all out every two days.

Sorry for your loss

What makes you think dks rather than old age?

 

[ForTW]

How do you know? She never molted in captivity and the females get a bodylength of 8mm.
The Spider in the pic looks approx 8mm.

Why not old age?

(Sidenote, would love to see the source of smoking beeing the cause of DKS).

 

[egyptiancrow]

What makes you think dks rather than old age?

paralysis. old age my spiders lay on the bottom and either 1) curl 2) dont curl, and they look alive, but asleep. my old spiders dont move around while theyre on the bottom, they sit there until the end comes.

its possible it was old age since it was an older spider, though usually females would last a bit longer than 8 months. if she was an adult when she was gotten then your time is shorter but it sounded like she was "Stuck" than just slowing down and passing away. i might have misread it that way, was she not sticking her legs straight out? Thats how a lot of spiders die of dks, but if you meant "she looks normal" then i would agree its old age.

 

[HeartBum]

There's nothing to suggest this is "DKS" (whatever that actually means asides from a very broad range of ailments and symptoms, who knows). No jerky movements have been described, no shaking, no extremely abnormal behaviour. I would not lay rest on this being a case of poisoning - it's far too easy and overused of an excuse, which is rarely the actual cause.

If her legs are not curled, she is still alive, as stated. The best thing you can do for her is to drip a little water on to her mouth parts (flip her over) and see if she drinks. If that doesn't work, then I'm afraid it likely is just her time and she's passing of old age.

 

[Wolfram1]

I would go with the advice of the jumping spider expert on this one. But who knows.

 

[Biollantefan54]

paralysis. old age my spiders lay on the bottom and either 1) curl 2) dont curl, and they look alive, but asleep. my old spiders dont move around while theyre on the bottom, they sit there until the end comes.

its possible it was old age since it was an older spider, though usually females would last a bit longer than 8 months. if she was an adult when she was gotten then your time is shorter but it sounded like she was "Stuck" than just slowing down and passing away. i might have misread it that way, was she not sticking her legs straight out? Thats how a lot of spiders die of dks, but if you meant "she looks normal" then i would agree its old age.

The way I read it was it was just laying there and it’s palps would move occasionally. Anytime I’ve heard dks, it was noticed by really erratic jerky movement, as heartbum said. I have had a jumping spider die of old age and it exhibited similar behavior as well as the OP. It seemed to slowly struggle to move until it just stopped moving. This took a few days.

 

[ForTW]

Anytime I’ve heard dks, it was noticed by really erratic jerky movement, as heartbum said.

I had three spiders in total with diskynetic syndrom. They all constantly had uncontrolled, wild movements with all or the front legs. You can hear them doing it all the time without any disturbance.

AS mentioned it is only a Syndrom and not an illness itself. Some researches lable it to a bacterium that attacks the nervs and can jump from enclosure to enclosure.

The other theory that leads to the uncontrolled movements is that recent researches figured out, that more nerves get reconnected during a molt as we tought of in the beginning. A "false" connection of the nerves can rarely be redone after the Next molt. Just that is hard to achieve.

8 months is a fair age. Yeah, one in a million, in the wild might live up to two years. CB spiders live less (maybe due to constant high temperature and excessive feeding).

Slipping and ending up on the floor is a clear sign of old age, you got this right .

Sometimes they also get the "hanging Abdomen".

 

[The Snark]

For everyone. Try to be a little more realistic. Go up to a vet or physician or a top flight experienced paramedic, or Jaeger, Crawford or Vetter and show them a picture of a patient that is just lying there. No data, no vitals, no obvious indicators, then ask, "What is your diagnosis?"

 

[Setsunadiava]

I’m very grateful for all the answers! My jumper, Sadako, is actually one that I caught in my apartment when she was not too small. In my kitchen sink no less. Till then she had been hunting and eating bugs in my apartment. As I said she was my first ever arachnid pet, I fed her bugs I caught around the apartment, the same as she had been doing before I found her.
I absolutely would take her to any expert I could, if there were vets that looked at spiders. Unfortunately the best that can be done is ask on the internet.
I asked this guy who owns a spider shop and I got an answer last night, he believes it’s some form of paralysis too. From some kind of bad feed. Except the last few things I’ve fed her are crickets from cricket farms. Same thing I’ve been giving my ladybird spider too.

She’s never molted. She has a small nest area she hid the winter away in, she had come out and moved around a lot just a few days prior, which is when I noticed the sliping off the side of her enclosure. but she didn’t slip off the props in her enclosure. Which is what I find so strange, she was out of her nest and on her floor of her enclosure when I found her frozen,
It’s entirely possible I messed up somehow. If she was a store bought spider I’d be sure it was the feed, but she was initially essentially a free roaming jumper so I thought she would be quite a bit hardier than that.

I would go with the advice of the jumping spider expert on this one. But who knows.

I don’t know who that is…

paralysis. old age my spiders lay on the bottom and either 1) curl 2) dont curl, and they look alive, but asleep. my old spiders dont move around while theyre on the bottom, they sit there until the end comes.

its possible it was old age since it was an older spider, though usually females would last a bit longer than 8 months. if she was an adult when she was gotten then your time is shorter but it sounded like she was "Stuck" than just slowing down and passing away. i might have misread it that way, was she not sticking her legs straight out? Thats how a lot of spiders die of dks, but if you meant "she looks normal" then i would agree its old age.

She was frozen with her legs and abdomen straight out when I found her. After I panicked, cried, called my parents to tell them Sadako was dead, about a few hours later she had pulled her legs and abdomen closer to her torso. She has also kind of crawled a little, I know this because she was on top of a piece of paper in her enclosure, with a little triangle crease and she ended up under the crease overnight.

 

[Wolfram1]

I don’t know who that is…

maybe there is more than one?

Who knows, but @egyptiancrow has helped me out with some questions about the breeding of Phiddipus sp. and the dangers incest poses with them contrary to many of our favourite theraphosidae spiders. And as far as i understood is in contact with various other Phiddipus breeders across the states? Correct me if i got that wrong .

Then again

Try to be a little more realistic. Go up to a vet or physician or a top flight experienced paramedic, or Jaeger, Crawford or Vetter and show them a picture of a patient that is just lying there. No data, no vitals, no obvious indicators, then ask, "What is your diagnosis?"

this applies in any case.

 

[Setsunadiava]

What I’m getting from all the above is that Sadako is beyond help.

it was freezing cold where I am for the past few months, is there any chance she’s conserving energy? She had been in her winter hideout for over a month before she got out to eat then went straight back in for another week or so.

 

[The Snark]

it was freezing cold where I am for the past few months, is there any chance she’s conserving energy? She had been in her winter hideout for over a month before she got out to eat then went straight back in for another week or so.

Go up to a vet or physician or a top flight experienced paramedic, or Jaeger, Crawford or Vetter and show them a picture of a patient that is just lying there. No data, no vitals, no obvious indicators, then ask, "Do you think it is just dormant and will recover??"
"Doctors were invented to amuse the patient while mother nature heals the body." Dr. T. H.

So go ask mom. Or wait and see. She operates on her own time frame.

 

[Setsunadiava]

Go up to a vet or physician or a top flight experienced paramedic, or Jaeger, Crawford or Vetter and show them a picture of a patient that is just lying there. No data, no vitals, no obvious indicators, then ask, "Do you think it is just dormant and will recover??"
"Doctors were invented to amuse the patient while mother nature heals the body." Dr. T. H.

So go ask mom. Or wait and see. She operates on her own time frame.

Look I came here for help. The only place I could. You are an awful person. I am genuinely traumatized that the only living thing with me in a foreign county, in a pandemic, that kept me sane and alive is in distress and there’s nothing I can do to help her and here you are up on your height horse just spouting nonsense.
Where pray do you find a vet for spiders?!
there is a time and place for being snaky and precocious. This is not it.

 

[The Snark]

Look I came here for help. The only place I could. You are an awful person. I am genuinely traumatized that the only living thing with me in a foreign county, in a pandemic, that kept me sane and alive is in distress and there’s nothing I can do to help her and here you are up on your height horse just spouting nonsense.
Where pray do you find a vet for spiders?!
there is a time and place for being snaky and precocious. This is not it.

I apologize for my perceived lack of sympathy. The plain basic fact is, aside from suggestions already given by others it is out of ours and your hands. Mom nature is going to take it's own course. You can attempt to render aid and comfort but as you said, there is no spider vet that can perform some established procedure.

I will add I have found myself in foreign countries or situations more than a few times and understand full well how you feel. Whether it was a child dying of cholera in my arms or my rifle barrel against the forehead of a beloved horse, I know the pain well. Too well to the degree that I appear to have become blase and dispassionate. Saying the words I have been and am being simply practical offers no solace.
If I have offended, you have my sincere apologies.