Today in the Spider Room?

[l4nsky]

That sucks. Considering that Aphonopelma generally go months without feeding, especially this time of year, this is really confusing - why in the world would she eat her eggsack when she very likely wouldn't take a prey item if offered?! I can't imagine how frustrated you must be, and I really hope you can get a few of the slings to pull through. Best of luck with the other female.

Frustrating is a good, safe, AB policy compliant word to use...... I've been going over my notes, the rooms environmental data, and any recollections I had of her behaviour during this process. I THINK I might have an idea of the issue(s) that contributed to her aborting the eggsack, but I can't say definitively one way or another. The experiments continue ....

 

[l4nsky]

Close to a year running a sensor suite recording environmental parameters in my spider room and I decided to review all that data recently. I don't think this is the answer I was looking for, but I did find this interesting nonetheless and worth sharing......

Here's the temps for the year. Pretty consistent across the board with a higher summertime average.


Here's the relative humidity. Again, pretty consistent across the board as this is actually controlled all year round.


And here's the barometric pressure..... What the...... Well it's pretty easy to see where the turbulent and unstable "wet season" is. Might be interesting seeing where some of my mature females molted on this timeline.

 

[MariaLewisia]

Sad to say I, too, have some bad news today.

I've had this C. elegans male on loan since April of this year. I now believe he's cursed. My females have produced three sacs from him. One was entirely infertile, one had a few fertile eggs which all died before hatching, and one had EWLs which also all died the moment they moulted to 1i. Very very odd, since other clutches of EWLs from other tarantulas were kept in identical incubators right besides these ones at the exact same time and they all thrived.

Exactly 30 days ago my first paired female made another sac from her first pairing, so a fourth one from this male. I decided to let her sit on it and see what happened. Today I noticed her sitting on top of the sac in what looked like a death curl. Dug her up and to my dismay I was right. She's still moving around but as soon as she stops, her body spasms into a death curl again. To make it even worse, the sac was infertile.

There is a small "chance" she was just old. I got her as an adult about two years ago. But it still hurts potentially losing her, too. Two of my favourite females gone in under a month...



Oh and the male? Still alive and kicking. The little--

Edit: I put the eggs in an incubator, just in case. This female's clutches were both absolutely massive (200+ eggs) so perhaps her body just got too weak double clutching that many eggs. We'll see if she makes it.

 

[Denn]

2 spiders molted last night.

Neoholothele incei SA.
Harmonicon oyapoquae SA.

N incei molt disintegrated upon removal.

Successfully sexed H oyapoquae as female it brought my total up to 3 females, 1 male, 3 unsexed of this species.

 

[MariaLewisia]

Happy news! My C. elegans female has recovered from her death curl! I'm so relieved. She even kicked a bunch of hairs at me for the first time ever when I opened the lid, so suffice to say she's feeling better now. Oof, what a relief. Crisis averted.

 

[Nolan Ladison]

Happy news! My C. elegans female has recovered from her death curl! I'm so relieved. She even kicked a bunch of hairs at me for the first time ever when I opened the lid, so suffice to say she's feeling better now. Oof, what a relief. Crisis averted.

View attachment 461199

Yay! what exciting news. She's quite pretty too. Glad to see something nice to start off my morning!

 

[Denn]

Happy news! My C. elegans female has recovered from her death curl! I'm so relieved. She even kicked a bunch of hairs at me for the first time ever when I opened the lid, so suffice to say she's feeling better now. Oof, what a relief. Crisis averted.

View attachment 461199

C elegans is such a beautiful spider! It's a shame my adult female is more or less a pet hole :/ I rarely see her. Glad she had recovered from her near death experience.

 

[l4nsky]

Just finally pulled the trigger on a proper (read as expensive ) microscope and LED ring light for sexing molts. Looking forward to finally putting the clip-on phone macro lens in storage and getting caught up on my sexing backlog.

 

[zsiciarz]

Did anyone say equipment upgrades? Here as well, I got a Raynox DCR-250 and (finally) an external flash.

Avicularia cf. juruensis

• zsiciarz
• Nov 21, 2023
• avicularia juruensis peru purple

Just a paw :-) First shots with Raynox DCR-250.

 

[TLSizzle]

How I always feel I look like while in the spider room

Link

Google Image Result for https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/rickandmorty/images/8/8e/S3e8_the_menagerie.png/revision/latest/scale-to-width-down/1200?cb=20171023140249

images.app.goo.gl

 

[fcat]

This is Goodall, a sub adult Aphonopelma moderatum I named after the great doctor and one of my childhood heroes...the person I still wish I could be.

I pulled her off the shelf to freshen up her water dish, and she came right out to investigate. I haven't seen her in about a month, but her typical viewing hours are just before sunrise.






While I am sitting there feeling accomplished that I made her a home she loves so much, my boyfriend says, "That's a cool box of dirt you've got there."

I have never been so offended in my life.

 

[l4nsky]

Arrived early and all setup. 8-50x magnification stereo microscope with top and bottom LED lighting and a 4.5" working distance so I can manipulate the molt easily while using it. I also got a separate, 144 LED ring light with adjustable brightness that's attached at the bottom of the tube to REALLY light things up. This is a trinocular setup as well, so I'll be able to add a digital camera on the top in the future should I want to.

I tested it out on a few molts that were previously sexed and mounted for microscopy. The clarity is just outstanding and the ease of use in comparison to my previous methods for sexing molts is just unbelievable. I think this purchase was extremely long overdue for my collection and Iook forward to getting a bit more informed on some of the sex ratios in my growout groups.

While I am sitting there feeling accomplished that I made her a home she loves so much, my boyfriend says, "That's a cool box of dirt you've got there."

I have never been so offended in my life.

My standard response to that is :
"I've got a jar of dirt, I've got a jar of dirt, and guess what's inside it?"
--Cap'n Jack Sparrow

 

[8 legged]

Brachypelma auratum from 2021.
Slowly but surely she is developing!


Tliltocatl vagans was my first species in the 90s and I still love it / Juvenile Grammostole pulchra


Young Grammostola rosea ...
Today I also was able to finish my show terrarium for my Zamenis situla pair that is resting in the basement...

 

[NMTs]

Today I rehoused the first of five Phormingochilus sp. Sabah Blue slings that I would like to get done this week. I want to get them all moved out of their sling dram vials and into their juvie growout enclosures before they start the next round of molts, which should be any day.

This one is Alpha, unsexed juvenile, about 2.5" DLS. Probably could have stayed in the vial until after the next molt, but it would get really tight.



Here it's saying thanks and goodbye very politely:

Phormingochilus greeting...

• NMTs
• Nov 27, 2023
• phormingochilus phormingochilus sp sabah blue sabah blue sp. "sabah blue"

Alpha, 0.0.1 Phormingochilus sp. Sabah Blue (~2.5" DLS), waving hello (or goodbye). Nice...

Will update when I get the other 4 done later this week.

 

[zsiciarz]

Rehoused my 0.0.2 Amazonius burgessi siblings. No drama, no threat postures, no bolts whatsoever. Just two very stubborn arachnokittens. Sir, would you please move away from the water dish?

 

[NMTs]

Phormingochilus sp. Sabah Blue number 2 (Beta, still unsexed, suspect female) got rehoused today. This one wasn't as cranky about it, just tried to play hide and seek most of the time.




Also, I had to move my MM Chilobrachys fimbriatus enclosure to fit the new one, and I caught him in the middle of loading up. Didn't bother him one bit - he was very focused on the task at hand:


Now I just need to find someone that has a female that's ready to go!

 

[IntermittentSygnal]

@NMTs Feel like you walked in on your teenager..?

 

[l4nsky]

Phormingochilus sp. Sabah Blue number 2 (Beta, still unsexed, suspect female) got rehoused today. This one wasn't as cranky about it, just tried to play hide and seek most of the time.
View attachment 461683
View attachment 461684
View attachment 461685

Also, I had to move my MM Chilobrachys fimbriatus enclosure to fit the new one, and I caught him in the middle of loading up. Didn't bother him one bit - he was very focused on the task at hand:
View attachment 461686

Now I just need to find someone that has a female that's ready to go!

That should be the last molt that they've got the sling coloration. Here's one of their freshly molted sackmates with the fresh new juvie coloration

 

[NMTs]

That should be the last molt that they've got the sling coloration. Here's one of their freshly molted sackmates with the fresh new juvie coloration
View attachment 461702

Nice. I feel like I can see the blue trying to show through already, looking forward to it! They're going into their 1/2 gallon mainstay jugs, which have been surprisingly hard to find - have you been in NM lately?

 

[NMTs]

@NMTs Feel like you walked in on your teenager..?

Oh man... my son is about that age and I'm not looking forward to it.