When stupidity catches up with you..

Valael

Arachnodemon
Old Timer
Joined
Jul 19, 2002
Messages
756
Well, I was getting ready to move my Usambara sling to a different cage by moving the entire plant that he has his web on (It's a beta cage, I just tossed the plants in that came with it -- THey're light weight and hey, he seems to like them)

I noticed one thing though...He had doubled in size!


So instead of doing it the easy way, I ripped the webbing apart to see him more clearly. Once the webbing was gone, I gasped in horror -- an alien had invaded my baby's home!


Er...Well...Sort of. Spiders look really funny in the middle of molting, and that's just what I had done. Ripped his home apart and disturbed him quite a bit in the middle of molting.


Well, I put him back in on his back, thinking for sure I had doomed the little spawn of satan to a short life or a period of deformation. Well, his legs started to move and I turned off the lights and went to bed.

But I was too worried about him and couldn't sleep - I got up about 10 minutes later and watched him finish molting. Everything turned out fine and he's an f'ing cow! I open his cage (Now in the smallest pet carrier) and he moves to the front of his funnel-type web (Attached to the plants again..they really like those things) and just waits. I reach in with my tweasers with a cricket on the end and it disappears in the blink of an eye.


I don't think I'm going to do that again, but in a way it was worth it - it was the first time I got to watch the actual molting part of a molt..or something. All I had seen before was the spider on it's back, not even moving.


Makes me wish I could hold the little guy! =p
 

Vayu Son

Avatar of Anansi
Old Timer
Joined
Jul 19, 2002
Messages
808
Usumbara growth

In my experience Usumbaras are one of the fastest growing theraphosids. Id even take it as far as to say that sexing based on the frequency of their molts would be unreliable. Here is a record to date of my unsexed sling.



Pterinochilus sp.
recieved from reptile outlet: 5/01/02 spiderling unsexed
molt: week of 5/20/02 new Ls: 1"
molt: week of 6/29/02 new ls: 1 3/4"
molt: week of 8/4/02 new ls: 2 1/2"
molt: 8/26/02 new ls: 3"
 

skinheaddave

SkorpionSkin
Arachnosupporter +
Joined
Aug 15, 2002
Messages
4,341
That's quite the growth rate. How often are you feeding at that size?

Cheers,
Dave
 
Top