What's this on my Jumper's eyes????

[Silberrücken]

Hi all! I need some help for my poor MeiDonna. She is an Plexippus paykulli jumpng spider. A very rare and wonderful girl she is, and is the love of my life.

Yesterday she wanted to come out and explore, so I got out my camera and let her go where she wanted. (She never tries to escape, and she "knows" not to leave the PC desk) As always, she was her usual self, full of curiousity and getting into everything. I noticed nothing unusual in her behaviour.

Today I checked on her and she was quite lethargic. Normally she gets excited and waits to see if I have food, or if she gets to come out. I had to actually pick her up, and even then she only moved enough to get a better grip on my finger. THAT, for her, is VERY strange behaviour.

I decided to take some pics, to see if I could find something wrong with her. As I looked at the pics, I saw this...

If anyone knows what this is, please tell me what it is, and if I can do something to help her???? She shares an enclosure with another female & male, all 3 are mature. They get along very well. MeiDonna shares a coin-wrapper tube with the female; the male has his own corner.

The enclosure is well-ventilated, plenty of water is always available, and all the decor and substrate is very clean.

Any help/advice is very much appreciated in advance. Help me save my sweetheart! Thx to all who reply. (Look at areas of her eyes) S.

 

[rustym3talh3ad]

I dont know enough about disease and parasite to say anything, but i do notice that there appears to be something on the chelicerae as well. First things first i would separate her out from the other 2 just to be safe, make sure nothing can be spread to the others. Can you get any more pictures without disturbing her to much?

 

[Silberrücken]

R.I.P., MeiDonna...

Sadly, my little Sweetheart has gone to that Big Web in the Sky... She leaves behind an broken-hearted Friend who will miss her every day....

Rusty, here are more pics to show progress of the... whatever it was around her eyes. I accidentally deleted the original posted pic, so it is also included as 1st pic here....

Pic 2 shows what happened when I took a Q-tip moistened with water (excess squeezed out), and lightly wiped over the areas around her eyes. To my amazement, it turned white. :? I took some pics to document this before proceeding.

Pic 3 shows how the area looked when I got as much as possible off. Poor MeiDonna was so patient, but even she had her limits. I didn't want to stress her even more, so I stopped here. My intention was to wait til today to try to get the rest off, if possible.

She seemed to perk up some after this... wiping her eyes with her palps to clean them, walking around, almost her usual self. I put her back into the ICU with a Gatorade cap moistened with water at the bottom. Then I went to bed.

Upon waking, I immediately checked on her and found her dead in the cap. I was devastated! The water had already evaporated, which I knew would happen. I am at a complete loss as to why she died, and how.

I inspected carefully the other 2 spiders, they are fine. However, I did think of something... in the tube she shared with the other female, the webbing was as a 'bunkbed': MeiDonna occupied the bottom, Prissie the top part. Is it possible that Prissie dropped a bolus, and it landed on MeiDonna? Was it on her long enough so that she got infected by something in the bolus? If this is a possibility, then I need to isolate the remaining male & female...

And Rusty, can you tell me exactly where you see something on her chelicerae? I would like to try to get pictures of that area. Maybe we can learn something about this, to prevent such in the future. Thank you for your prompt reply and advice.

Pic 4 is a post-mortem shot of her... S.

 

[TheTyro]

Maybe fungus? I know fungi can be quite a scary thing for arachnids and i've seen some messed up photos of critters who are killed by growths.

sorry about your loss :[ It's always super sad when they die, especially out of the blue.