Speaking of Ts dying in their water dish...

[Code Monkey]

Here's the sight that greeted me last night, my C. cyaneopubescens dead with his mouthparts in the water dish. He's not acted quite right since his last moult in the fall - only eating rarely if at all - there's a lot of hiding places in the container so I could never be certain if he was eating or if the crickets were just going off to die in many cases. Weight stayed up so I never worried too much about that. He's also been standing with a not-quite-right T posture.

I examined the corpse with a dissecting scope and detected no nematodes or other obvious pathology. There were a few mites in the mouth area but I'm not sure if they were there before or just wound up there by virtue of being in the water (I've had some mite issues lately and with the tank being kept dry any mites that travelled there would have headed for the water dish). Either way, the number of mites was nothing significant.

Any ideas?

 

[greensleeves]

He's a beautiful spider, even in death. It must have been hard to find him like that.

My condolences.

Greensleeves

 

[BigSam]

That sucks,
thats a good looking spider,

Sam,

 

[Telson]

Major bumber.

Really sorry this happened.

Are these known for being hard to keep like some other species?

 

[wsimms]

Sorry to see that. I'm considering one as my next T, and it's distressing to see that they're susceptible to U.A.D.*Syndrome. You have my sympathy.

W

(*-Up And Died)

 

[phoenixxavierre]

No idea, but sorry to hear you lost your greenbottle blue. My condolances.

 

[ArachnoJoost]

Originally posted by Telson
Are these known for being hard to keep like some other species?

Quite the contrary, they're very hardy, do well in a bone-dry enclosure (in fact, they don't like high humidity) and eat very well.

@Code: Sorry for your loss, it was a beautiful spider (and looks completely normal to me. Sometimes there are problems you just can't figure out unfortunately.

greetz,
Joost

 

[Immortal_sin]

that stinks C_M...
he looks healthy, nothing obvious that I can see externally.
I know how dry you keep yours, and they are a dry species anyway, so I'm wondering if something happened during the last molt internally that finally caught up with him?
my sympathies!

 

[manville]

That really sucks sorry for the lost

 

[Code Monkey]

Thanks for the nice thoughts, folks. Not to sound like I'm too callous, but this was not among my faves so from my p.o.v. it just made room for another T.

I'm more concerned about the UAD nature of its death. Without weight loss, discharge, etc., it just appears to have simply stopped. It was a subadult male about 18 months in age that I raised from about the 3rd instar, so unless something went wrong with the last moult such that it couldn't eat or drink (e.g. failure to shed the pumping stomach lining), I don't have any idea what could have killed it.

 

[manville]

it looked healthy to me..it probably just died for no apparent reason..boy arent those t expensive? I want to get one of those soon..

 

[AudreyElizabeth]

Well hey, now you have room for a P. metallica, right?

I hope you can at least draw some conclusion about the cause of death. It sucks when it's a mystery. Sorry about the loss!!

 

[Code Monkey]

Originally posted by manville
arent those t expensive?

Not really, I think I paid $25 for it as a sling and normally see them selling in the $25-$35 range.

 

[webspinner]

Yea I lost two myself this weekend. 1 B. pallidum and 1. A bicoloratum. I guess I put too much water in thier deli cups, so it effected their molt.

 

[krucz36]

i think you may have hit the nail on the head with the stomach lining thoughts. any difficult molting its mouth or digestive linings could have resulted in the symptoms you described. i know the greenbottles like it dry, but perhaps this one didn't get enough fluid premolt, for whatever reason. the timing of its molt could have fallen in such a way as its last feeding being ignored, maybe it didn't go for its water dish...
molting is a dangerous time for a T!

 

[nemesis6sic6]

It was either

WHat was descrived above.

Or something in the water? did you use tap water?

maybe it was sick and it had an infection so it seeked water?

I'm not sure but I'm really sorry for your loss.

Hope you have a nice day

geo

 

[Code Monkey]

Re: It was either

Originally posted by nemesis6sic6
Or something in the water? did you use tap water?

Same water everyone else gets, plain old tap water. If there was anything wrong with the water all my Ts would be dead.

Best guess is failure to shed the pumping stomach lining which would have led to it slowly dying of thirst and this dunk was its last ditch effort to re-hydrate. Not the best way to go, but like Garth says, moulting is the most dangerous time for a T, even if it takes months for the final results to be known.

 

[Bjorgly]

Here is my weird A.seemanni, sitting by the water dish as always. She is usually totally underwater. I have a bad feeling she might be next to go. It's abdomen is way smaller than it looks.

 

[krucz36]

perhaps your A. seemani has an instestinal disorder or some kind of infestation, and is trying to hydrate its spidey nether regions? i've seen teh bugs sit "face-first" in the water, but that's the first time i've seen one hinder-first.

 

[MizM]

Wow Code, sad picture. It's hard to see, but was the opisthoma kinda of holding on to the carapace area by "just a thread?" I noticed that with my brown phase g. rosea that had UADS.