Strange small white eggs on leaves in enclosure

40Legs

Arachnopeon
Joined
Jun 16, 2020
Messages
2
Hi everyone, I was wondering if my partner and I could get some help identifying these eggs that have shown up on our tarantula's silk leaves, and advice on what to do if they're harmful.

This is a Venezuelan Sun Tiger's enclosure. He (presumably, but we haven't sexed the critter yet) is a juvenile/young adult, about 2.5". His recent meals over the past month or so have been banded crickets, dubia roaches and mealworms (he's VORACIOUS, btw!). He's our first arboreal; we got him 23 days ago from Jamie's, and his substrate is a basic coco fiber, with cork bark for his hiding spots.

The little white egg sac things have shown up on his leaves, and I'm worried it might be a parasite or pest of some kind, but I haven't been able to find anything that looks like them through Google searches.

Should I deal with it by removing the plant, or are they harmless? It's part of his web funnel and lair, so removing it might disturb him, but it might be possible to snip them out without disturbing his house too much. I just don't wanna ruin his day, and he's also seriously fast so I don't want to be poking around in there too much, either.

Thanks y'all!

leafeggsmeatball.jpg
 

coolnweird

Arachnobaron
Joined
Oct 20, 2019
Messages
512
That's actually tarantula poop! Some of them poop kinda chalky, and some of them poop like white grains like this. No need to worry!
 

40Legs

Arachnopeon
Joined
Jun 16, 2020
Messages
2
Whew, thank you! :shy:

It's an embarrassing revelation for sure, but having found his outhouse rather than a tank invader's clutch is a huge relief. We're used to seeing it at more of a bird poop consistency from the other tarantulas, and when I tried to clear poop as a suspect originally my image searching was turning up the usual watery consistency. Of course, now that I'm directly searching on Arachnoboards I'm turning up other threads just like this one. Yikes!

Thanks for your patience, folks!
 
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