Ally's Eight-Legged Journey

Diablo's scorplings are now wandering about! They have been wandering around in the mouth of her burrow, completely free from mum. This means I took the chance to separate them as soon as I could. This is a photo of a scorpling from a few days ago - it is small, and very pale in colour. I'm not sure if it was even meant to be off her back this early, but it was: I waited a few days, and the scorplings started to change colour. They are now a darker brown - still not black like their mum, but darker than the pale cream one. I have counted them out - I now have an extra 15 scorplings - and put them into a communal tank where they can huddle together under some bark. I have fed them a couple of pre-killed locusts which they seemed to enjoy, and I spritz them every day. So far, so good. I still have 15 scorplings...

It's a feeding day. I know this because Ziggy is out and about. Ziggy is my elusive P. metallica . Like most metallicas, he is very shy, and very bolty - He will bolt back down into his tunnel at the slightest hint of movement from the outside. This is how I know when he is hungry - A hungry Ziggy doesn't bolt as easily. When I was feeding him today, I couldn't help but notice that he is finally coming into his adult colouring. He still has the juvie grey colouration on his carapace and abdomen, but his legs are starting to get the blue and yellow markings of an adult. It's really nice to see because an adult P. metallica is quite a beautiful sight. I'm quite excited to see that I'm getting to see it in my own home.

A very quick unscheduled post to wish you all a very Merry Christmas! Happy Holidays from myself, the Spoods, and all the rest of the critters.

And so my decision to get my first mystery box has even more consequences.... Since Diablo arrived, she has reminded me time and time again why mystery boxes may not be the best of ideas. I had thought that now that she was rehoused into a 125 litre aquarium, she might be happy. I was happy thinking that I had done my best to make her happy, given that she was a wild caught animal. I felt guilty at the idea of her being pulled from her natural environment, shipped thousands of miles around the world, and dumped in a plastic tub in my front room. Since being moved into the larger housing, I had barely seen her as she had burrowed deep into the substrate. I took this to be a good thing, as previously she had been pacing her smaller enclosures, tapping on the glass. She certainly didn't seem content then, so now that her behaviour seemed calmer I thought that maybe she was content now. Well, it seems that she had a surprise up her many sleeves.... Just as a reminder, this is ...

Okay, okay. I admit it - I have a problem! But to be honest I really don't care... My partner and I stumbled across a local exotics shop by accident called Jay's Jungle. We initially went in there to see what selection of live foods they might have had, expecting them to be mainly reptiles. When I found that they had tarantulas in there as well (on a shelf high up because they were apparently scaring the customers away!) I had to have a look. They had a lot of the regular species, mainly Brachypelma>/i> and Grammastola species, but they also had several Venezuelan Sun Tigers, (Psalmopoeus irminia . So I went in there for food, and I came out with this: Venezuelan sun tigers are native to Venezuela and Brazil, which makes thema New World species. However, unlike most New World species they don't have urticating hairs, and so they rely on venom for self defense. This makes them more like an Old World species, so I plan on treating him as such. Because his dark ...

Less of a post and more of a random photo share - I was walking past Catchy's cage today, and she was looking at me in a peculiar manner, so I had to get a photograph: Not only did I find her posing interesting, but this photo shows a part of her anatomy that I'm very curious about - those shiny black bits in the segments of her abdomen. I've seen them several times before, but I never knew what they were. I've had a bit of a nose around Google since taking this photo, and apparently they're part of her threat display. Catchy has never displayed for me, so I don't know what her threat display looks like - the closest I can find online is this photo: Supposedly, they can inflate them to make themselves look bigger and scare off predators. Pretty cool!

Meet Skele-Ted. Skele-Ted is a pale ladybird spider, Stegodyphus dufouri . These spiders are related to the Black velvet spider that I would really like to add to my collection. They are an arboreal species that originates from the continent of Africa, so like warm dry enclosures with plenty of height. Unfortunately, when Skele-Ted arrived, it was very obvious that he was already a mature male due to the length of his first pair of front legs. Male individuals of this species (and indeed many others) have extra long front legs to help them to hold the females' fangs at bay as they attempt matine. This was a little disappointing as a mature male is likely to have a shorter life span than a female, but he is still an impressive specimen regardless. I named him Skele-Ted due to his cute little face. It made me think of a sad teddy bear, wearing a skull - A little bit like the Pokemon Cubone. I prefer to think that it's the skull of his enemy rather than his mother though! H...

My newest Jumping spider is now named Charlotte. Growing up I was an avid reader, and Charlotte's Web was an absolute favourite. Since I like to give my jumpers traditional English names, it was only a matter of time before I had a Charlotte. She is such a small spider though! Absolutely tiny, so I can't feed her in her enclosure yet. Like when I first got Winnie, I have to pull her out of her enclosure and put her in a smaller feeding tub so that she doesn't lose her food in the vast space of her home. Here she is being curious in her feeding tub: I have tried and tried to find a spider who was as curious about me and as engaged with me as Winnie was, and so far I have failed. Spiders are like any other animal and they all have their individual personalities. I think I might have finally got lucky with Charlotte. She watches me as I walk around her enclosure, cocking her head with curiosity. I haven't tried to handle her yet as she's too small and I don...

It feels as though I have only just got these critters, but the first spiny leaf insect has matured. It's hardly surprising. Since they arrived, these stick insects have decimated the raspberry plants that I grow in my garden. I am constantly clipping fresh leaves to put into their enclosure, and they have been molting quite often. The most recent molt for this one has resulted in a mature male stick insect. The easiest way to tell that it is mature is the presence of wings, as nymphs generally don't have wings, and a subadult insect can have at the most wing nubs. So this insect suddenly emerging from his molt with wings tells me he is mature. The presence of full length, fully functional wings tells me that this is a male. Female stick insects tend to be much larger than males, and only have vestigial wings that can't carry their bulky weight. This guy is long and skinny, indicating a male. Obviously, he is quite a bit larger than I was anticipating - most of the s...

Another short gratuitous photo post, which exists purely to showcase Wilma, with her cute eyes. I love how fluffy she is right now, and I definitely think that her markings look like eyebrows - she has a permanently surprised expression going on.