Hello, I am making this post in urgent need of knowledge from experienced keepers, as I am attempting to immediately understand this baby Joro spider's behavior to assess whether or not she is dying of something and in need of instant hydration, if her state indicates she is sick or diseased possibly, or if this is truly just pre molt behavior found in Joros, and perhaps other weaving spiders of the Trichonephila Genus. Even if I simply need to put her back into the wild outside, I just want to know what is happening and whatever I can possibly do to help keep her healthy and alive.
I believe in order to properly include all relevant information to help any readers make a conclusion and provide answers, I should detail the events prior to my caring for this juvenile Joro spider leading up to finding her in this state the past day.
To begin, I had been caring for a different Joro spider in my front yard that I constructed this emergency enclosure for in a single night, after I discovered her having been wounded and missing a leg due to a predator attack, suddenly drastically smaller in abdomen size as well as curled near death from freezing temperatures the night before.
She didn’t make it past the first night hanging in the enclosure sadly and was just so wounded from whatever had preyed upon her. Upon closer examination she was missing even one of her pedipalps and another one of her legs had been injured and fallen off after several hours of finally being left alone. She was really special, a cute and impressive spider. I miss her a lot, and named her Midnight for her all black leg coloration. I initially felt that I wouldn’t want to use the same enclosure at all anymore to not be replacing her memory, but later decided that I should extend my affection to the rest of her species and try to help at least one of her sister Joro spiders.
I had then found another juvenile much smaller than her that was also wounded and missing a leg, inhabiting a dangerous predator flyzone in my yard I had noticed a lot of other spiders disappear from.
Additionally I thought it worthy to note that when I attempted to hydrate her with a water cap, (it had also been cold that night) she sat on top of it there drinking for around 30 seconds. She was immediately fast with energy again like an oiled machine, and started webbing a whole bunch once inside the enclosure.
I noticed however that she proceeded to spend a good amount of time for a couple days in between just webbing up the entire ceiling of the enclosure repeatedly trying to get through areas with air holes or slits, and worry for that reason that enclosures for most orb weavers that aren’t cross ventilated on both sides are less comfortable to them regardless of their space and ability to web in it since they use the wind to balloon lines and feel as if they have a more natural, not as enclosed or trapped environment.
Regardless to quickly summarize her behavior up until today, to try to encourage her to feed and accept the enclosure as her home, I tried a tip I found very helpful, which was my discovery of the ability to feed a hungry weaving spider that has yet to properly web up a new enclosure and isn’t in active pre-molt, by very slowly and gently holding small enough prey to allow it to caress or touch their front legs, or pedipalps. I was introduced to this possibility watching this video, and succeeded in doing so with her. (although it took two attempts and she ran at first)
(please don’t keep spiders in bags or stress them out rubbing their legs like this guy was however) She ate one tiny cricket and then finally made a real web the next night, after I additionally made alterations to the enclosure to simulate a separate layer of vines and tree branches on the bottom of it, which she proceeded to web anchors to.
I attempted feeding her in the web multiple times with many different kinds of insects from my backyard after this but she refused every single one, either not noticing or reacting to the vibrations in the web in any way, or just running away the one time I tried again allowing the antenna of one prey item to brush across her legs to get her attention. She additionally began hiding in the groove of the ceiling in the terrarium, in different spots for the past couple days basically only moving to find a different spot every several hours, never returning to her web at all, and reacting less to vibrations from my walking around the room or speaking gently towards her. However, she would still quickly move with coordination around the enclosure whenever I did catch her moving, and could still do stuff like quickly pull herself back up a line after descending down to the enclosure floor. All of this along with other images I found of molting orb weavers leaving behind skin that was left hanging in a similar position indicated to me that she was likely in pre molt.
I had been really worried that her inability to eat and desire to hide indicated possible DKS disease, as the one tiny cricket I was able to feed her was amongst a small bag of five I had earlier picked up from PetSmart, prior to doing more research that week and learning of the DKS disease in crickets and realizing that all of those crickets had began showing signs of it, although there isn't yet proof to my understanding it can be passed on to other invertebrates. I figured however that her ability to move well enough with coordination these past few days could potentially dispel such a notion.
I feel it also necessary to mention that while I have been consistently keeping two water dishes filled in her enclosure, and have a humidifier running along with a space heater in her room for the winter temps with the window open the majority of the time, there was one morning I woke up to find the humidifier having shut itself off likely a few hours prior, and although I instantly turned off the heat opening the window, I wanted to know if even that amount of time could have greatly dehydrated or desiccated her, to the point where an immediate correction of humidity levels wouldn’t have helped. All that being said, this non-moving, utterly frozen position she is currently in shown in the first attached pic below appearing to be weakly hanging, and now completely unresponsive to sound, vibration or even me gently blowing a stream of air in her direction is almost exactly how I saw Midnight hanging before she died and came in to find her on the floor of the enclosure. She has not even twitched a single leg from this exact pose and position for around 24 hours. I am extremely worried and just don’t want to be responsible for her death. Apologies for a lengthy post, any and all thoughts or advice in this matter are most greatly appreciated.
Her current state pictured just now today
Same juvenile in the first web she made after eating. (Still figuring out how to best reflect light to photograph webs, it bounces everywhere too in this enclosure.)
I believe in order to properly include all relevant information to help any readers make a conclusion and provide answers, I should detail the events prior to my caring for this juvenile Joro spider leading up to finding her in this state the past day.
To begin, I had been caring for a different Joro spider in my front yard that I constructed this emergency enclosure for in a single night, after I discovered her having been wounded and missing a leg due to a predator attack, suddenly drastically smaller in abdomen size as well as curled near death from freezing temperatures the night before.
She didn’t make it past the first night hanging in the enclosure sadly and was just so wounded from whatever had preyed upon her. Upon closer examination she was missing even one of her pedipalps and another one of her legs had been injured and fallen off after several hours of finally being left alone. She was really special, a cute and impressive spider. I miss her a lot, and named her Midnight for her all black leg coloration. I initially felt that I wouldn’t want to use the same enclosure at all anymore to not be replacing her memory, but later decided that I should extend my affection to the rest of her species and try to help at least one of her sister Joro spiders.
I had then found another juvenile much smaller than her that was also wounded and missing a leg, inhabiting a dangerous predator flyzone in my yard I had noticed a lot of other spiders disappear from.
Additionally I thought it worthy to note that when I attempted to hydrate her with a water cap, (it had also been cold that night) she sat on top of it there drinking for around 30 seconds. She was immediately fast with energy again like an oiled machine, and started webbing a whole bunch once inside the enclosure.
I noticed however that she proceeded to spend a good amount of time for a couple days in between just webbing up the entire ceiling of the enclosure repeatedly trying to get through areas with air holes or slits, and worry for that reason that enclosures for most orb weavers that aren’t cross ventilated on both sides are less comfortable to them regardless of their space and ability to web in it since they use the wind to balloon lines and feel as if they have a more natural, not as enclosed or trapped environment.
Regardless to quickly summarize her behavior up until today, to try to encourage her to feed and accept the enclosure as her home, I tried a tip I found very helpful, which was my discovery of the ability to feed a hungry weaving spider that has yet to properly web up a new enclosure and isn’t in active pre-molt, by very slowly and gently holding small enough prey to allow it to caress or touch their front legs, or pedipalps. I was introduced to this possibility watching this video, and succeeded in doing so with her. (although it took two attempts and she ran at first)
I attempted feeding her in the web multiple times with many different kinds of insects from my backyard after this but she refused every single one, either not noticing or reacting to the vibrations in the web in any way, or just running away the one time I tried again allowing the antenna of one prey item to brush across her legs to get her attention. She additionally began hiding in the groove of the ceiling in the terrarium, in different spots for the past couple days basically only moving to find a different spot every several hours, never returning to her web at all, and reacting less to vibrations from my walking around the room or speaking gently towards her. However, she would still quickly move with coordination around the enclosure whenever I did catch her moving, and could still do stuff like quickly pull herself back up a line after descending down to the enclosure floor. All of this along with other images I found of molting orb weavers leaving behind skin that was left hanging in a similar position indicated to me that she was likely in pre molt.
I had been really worried that her inability to eat and desire to hide indicated possible DKS disease, as the one tiny cricket I was able to feed her was amongst a small bag of five I had earlier picked up from PetSmart, prior to doing more research that week and learning of the DKS disease in crickets and realizing that all of those crickets had began showing signs of it, although there isn't yet proof to my understanding it can be passed on to other invertebrates. I figured however that her ability to move well enough with coordination these past few days could potentially dispel such a notion.
I feel it also necessary to mention that while I have been consistently keeping two water dishes filled in her enclosure, and have a humidifier running along with a space heater in her room for the winter temps with the window open the majority of the time, there was one morning I woke up to find the humidifier having shut itself off likely a few hours prior, and although I instantly turned off the heat opening the window, I wanted to know if even that amount of time could have greatly dehydrated or desiccated her, to the point where an immediate correction of humidity levels wouldn’t have helped. All that being said, this non-moving, utterly frozen position she is currently in shown in the first attached pic below appearing to be weakly hanging, and now completely unresponsive to sound, vibration or even me gently blowing a stream of air in her direction is almost exactly how I saw Midnight hanging before she died and came in to find her on the floor of the enclosure. She has not even twitched a single leg from this exact pose and position for around 24 hours. I am extremely worried and just don’t want to be responsible for her death. Apologies for a lengthy post, any and all thoughts or advice in this matter are most greatly appreciated.
Her current state pictured just now today
Same juvenile in the first web she made after eating. (Still figuring out how to best reflect light to photograph webs, it bounces everywhere too in this enclosure.)
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