Ally's Eight-Legged Journey

Summer is the time of fun, holidays, relaxing, and potentially bad decisions. Okay, by the time this post hits it won't be summer anymore, but maybe that's a good thing? An injection of silly fun during the cold dark months. I recently spent a week in Mallorca with my partner - sun, sea, sand, and lots and lots of Lumumba. Lumumba is a milky chocolate drink with a measure or three of brandy in it - we had it over ice, but it can also be drunk warm, which makes it ideal at any time of year. (Like now, when it's cold and dark - so go get some!) As is traditional when my partner and I go away, we found ourselves crossing Mallorca from Port de Pollensa to Palma to track down a tattoo studio. We had googled and decided to go to one called Sailor Tattoo, which seemed to be a traditional tattoo shop, had good reviews, and - maybe more importantly - was open. The last time we went away and did this we got matching spider tattoos. My partner didn't want a spider themed o...

Today is a sad day for Catchy. She went int' her final molt before I had been able to move her from her original enclosure into a larger one. I had known that she was getting too large for the arboreal acrylic enclosure she was in - she was outgrowing the mesh square in the roof of the tank - and I had bought her a new glass one with a larger mesh roof. Unfortunately, I have been so busy with work and catching up on missed items that I hadn't gotten around to moving her yet. Additionally, I had gotten a little lax in misting her tank as the weather got warmer. I would come home from work, eat-shower-sleep, and then leave in the morning to do it all over again. The follies of commuting via public transport. So why is this a problem? This has caused Catchy two main problems. The first can be seen in the photo above. Catchy did not have enough space on the mesh covering to stretch her freshly molted legs out while they were hardening. Her leg span was larger than the ava...

This is Loki. He is my Hapalopus formosus spiderling. These spiders - also known as pumpkin patch spiders - are a dwarf tarantula, growing to about two and a half inches across. When Loki came to me, he was about 0.5cm, and now...I'm not actually sure he's much more than that. About 1.0cm, maybe 1.5cm. He has molted multiple times, he just seems to grow slowly. When he arrived, he was the smallest spider I'd ever had: The enclosure he is in there - and indeed is still in - is a spiderling tub from The Spider Shop, and is 9 by 9 cm. It's a small one. He still hasn't grown enough for me to move him into anything larger, and I do think he will always be my smallest spider. However, he has done some growing, so when I checked in on him this week I decided to get him out and take a comparison photograph. In this picture you can see two things. The first is that he has his adult colouration and markings. Does this mean that he's no longer a spiderling? I...

No blurb, no chat. Just a happy Spood, sitting on his walnut, and my appalling attempt at macro photography. I'll be back next week with something a bit more substantial.

Since we have been playing musical tanks with the critters' enclosures, I thought it would be nice to give an update on Incy Wincy. He's had several months in the time that he's been with me, going from a scraggly little bald-ass spiderling to this lovely juvenile. He is a great spider to watch because - although he does spend a lot of time in his hide - he has stopped bolting away when I come to the enclosure, and he is always excavating his substrate. Like Big Spood, he is a budding architect. In this photo (which unfortunately has no gauge for size comparison) he is about the same size that my P. machala is now - maybe about 2 inches in legspan. His abdomen is bald due to kicking, and he is deperately due a molt: Well, this is him now. If I didn't know any better, I'd swear it wasn't the same tarantula. I haven't measured him, but I'd estimate his leg span to be about 5 inches across, which would make him about half of his adult size - salmon pi...

Just a short post today, to share a better picture of my new Purple Bloom tarantula, or Pamphobeteus sp. machalla. This spider doesn't have a name as yet, because I really want to call it something related to the colour purple, but I am hoping it will be a boy, and all those names sound decidedly feminine. For example, Violet. Or Lavender. A random name generator came up with Shadow, Cobweb or Webster. Well, I already have a Webster, and Cobweb was the name of my friends' little white cat. So I need some new ideas... I'm sure something will hit me. So, here is his ass, in all its naked glory. Seriously. This spider has a bald patch on its ass. A New World tarantula like this one will kick it's abdomen when it feels threatened or stressed to send a flurry of 'urticating' hairs into the air. These hairs are an irritant, both to skin and when inhaled. The result of this to the tarantula is that the hair on its abdomen disappears, leaving bald patches. ...

Whilst going about my work day this Monday, I happened across this Wild Spood. She might be difficult to identify in this photograph, as she is a very dark brown - almost black - Steatoda species of spider. My first thought was a false widow, but she seems a little too dark for that. Regardless, what we have here is a very defensive mama spider who is protecting her egg sac. After running towards me once I picked her home up, she turned around and ran back to her sac - putting several long legs over it to keep it safe. It's okay Mama, I'm not going to touch your brood. But what this does do is give me the chance to talk about one of the aspects of my work - insect sampling. This spider has unfortunately made it's nest inside the cover that I use to test trigger the moth light trap that I use at work. I'm not sure whether this is more unfortunate for me, as it leaves me open to getting bitten whenever I test my moth trap, or the spider, who is going to be disturbed...

With Diablo vacating her large invertarium enclosure, it seemed to make sense that we move Big Spood into it. It wasn't much bigger in terms of area, but it was definitely deeper. This means that Big Spood will be able to dig - something that she clearly enjoys doing. We often sit and watch her as she excavates one corner of her enclosure, only to pile it up in a big tower at the opposite end. Here is Big Spood mid transfer: She has molted several times in my care, and right now I am finding it hard to picture how much smaller she was when she first arrived, so here is a photo (complete with wonky legs!) for comparison - though I'm not sure any size difference is at all visible. So now her substrate is about twice as deep, her water bowl is much larger, and she has some plastic decorations that I'm sure she probably won't even notice, (but I think that they look nice). Given that she has finally outgrown the white plastic container that she was using as a hide, I d...

It's my birthday! As it is my birthday and I am a Scorpio (not that I put any stock into astrology) I thought that we'd discuss Diablo some more. And as much as I'd like to think that Diablo is wishing me a Happy Birthday, the cold black of his eyes tells me otherwise.... Or, maybe I should say her eyes - yes, I now believe Diablo to be a girl. While I had Diablo out of the vivarium the other day to rehouse, I snapped this photo in the hopes of sexing her: Scorpions have two comblike structures called pectines which you can see in the photo above, or highlighted in this diagram below: Both sexes have these pectines, which they use as an additional sensory organ - each tooth of the comb is covered in chemoreceptors which have developed to detect scent trails, pheromones, or other chemical signals. Both sexes use them to track down prey or to find their way home to their burrow, for example. However, the male also uses his pectines to tract down receptive females for br...