Tarantulas abdomen covered in small white fibres. What is it?

[michaelbradbeer]

Australian tarantula, its abdomen is covered in little white strings, about 3 mm long each. They are also on it's webbing. Does anyone now what this is?

 

[Wolfram1]

Do you have a picture? Could be nematodes by the sound of it. Do the strings move?

 

[michaelbradbeer]

I couldn't get a clear picture, but when I stare at them they do seem to change shape slightly. It could just be my eyes playing tricks thought.

 

[Wolfram1]

Might just be the picture but it serms a little too moist. Appart from that i can't make the specs out properly to judge ether way.

What species do you keep, you guys have interesting fauna around.

@RezonantVoid might be able to help you out if you post a picture of the enclosure and the spider, he is one of our resident experts on australian spiders.

 

[michaelbradbeer]

I'll reduce the moisture, do you reccomend rehousing? I believe the T needs more substrate anyway, as this enclosure was all that I had available. The species is a Phlogius pq113.

It does need more sub, but here is the enclosure. I haven't seen any instances of nematodes on the abdomens of tarantulas. Is that normal? Super stressed out right now, never had a T die or get sick.

Can the nematodes be harmless or if they are on the tarantula will it die for sure?

 

[Wolfram1]

There are many kinds of nematodes and most wont kill your spider.

A likely cause for such an outbreak is putting a prekilled feeder insekt on the web that gets ignored. The first thing popping up on such a cadaver are usually nematodes or mites that break it down as it starts to decompose.

Maybe you picked a dead feeder out recently and now they are spreading in search of a new cadaver?

At any rate i wouldnt worry about them since the ones that would kill a spider usually exit the spider via the mouthparts and at that point it would probably too late anyway. It is extremly rare, normal nematodes on the other hand are everywere.

 

[michaelbradbeer]

I did recently pick out a dead cricket, that is probably it. Will they go away after a while? Thankyou so much! Hopefully everything will be okay.

 

[Wolfram1]

yea, nothing to worry about then, they like it moist so if you let things dry out a little more than usual they will be gone quicker

 

[RezonantVoid]

Might just be the picture but it serms a little too moist. Appart from that i can't make the specs out properly to judge ether way.

What species do you keep, you guys have interesting fauna around.

@RezonantVoid might be able to help you out if you post a picture of the enclosure and the spider, he is one of our resident experts on australian spiders.

I think you've pretty much covered everything, Phlogius are normally tolerant of a range of conditions but it probably would do good to lessen the moisture level slightly.

Only other change I think I can suggest would be switching from coir to peat moss. Alot of coir/cocopeat/cocofibre brands down here are prone to growing a type of mold after some time that is almost impossible to eradicate once it appears

 

[michaelbradbeer]

Thanks so much for all the help guys, he ate today so I think he will be fine!