In Memoriam: Summer edition

Unfortunately, due to the delayed nature of the posting on this blog, the things that I write about in the Summer don't get published until Winter, or vice versa. That's the limitation of a prolific poster writing up a buffer, to be released at regular intervals. It doesn't usually pose a problem, but as I write this post in the middle of Autumn - firstly, it is not going to hit the blog until next year. Secondly, due to the nature of the content here, it may interrupt continuity - I am writing to remember the charming little critters that I lost over this summer. Some of the deaths were expected, there had been plenty of warning. Other deaths were...surprising. But while I mention them here, due to the pre written nature of the content to come, there may be posts further down the line where these names and faces crop up again, almost as though I hadn't lost them.
I've been umming and ahhing over the best time to place this post, and to be honest - there's no good time. So I'm just going to go for it, and I hope that someone else will miss these little faces as much as I do.

Fred:

I wasn't expecting to lose Fred, but at the same time I knew he wasn't quite right. He wasn't a mature spider, by any stretch of the imagination, but he still went off his food like a mature male would. I tried everything I could to get him to eat, but in the end there waas just nothing I could do. He was okay one morning, then by the evening he was at the bottom of his tank in a death curl. I genuinely don't know for sure what happened, but he will be missed.

Tyson:

It was no surprise when Tyson passed. I was only upset that I hadn't managed to get some more photographs of him. He was a mature male Yunnan flower mantis. His only goal was to go forth and find a lady. Unfortunately he couldn't do that in my front room. The only potentially viable candidate - Evander - had passed several months earlier after a hunger strike. He lost interest in hunting, and would often crawl around his cage looking for an escape, but none was to be found. Ultimately, I found him at the bottom of his cage when I came back from holiday in the Summer holidays.

Skeleted:

I didn't have Skele-Ted for very long. It was a shame, because he was an absolute dream of a spider. There was one occasion where I was handling him and accidentally dropped him, and as I caught him mid fall, he bit me! I've never been bitten by a spioder before - not that I've been aware of. I can only assume that he thought I was about to squish him, (I wasn't! I was very gentle) because he gave me a nip. The area was sore - stinging- and itchy for a little while, but I couldn't hold it against him. And I'm not even sure he gave me the full barrel. I half suspect it was more of a gripping on bite than a 'sink fangs in and go for it' bite. It amazed me though, because a year earlier I would have freaked out at the possibility of a spider bite!
However, as lovely and calm as this spider was, he was a mature male when he came to me, and I'm not sure how long he had been mature. He was difficult to feed - only taking prey once or twice - and he was struggling to climb. We'd often see him scrabbling against the sides of his enclosure trying to get off the ground. I knew pretty early on that I wouldn't have him for long, but it was a sad loss nevertheless.

Cat Noir:

Losing Cat Noir was a surprise. As far as I could tell, he was a perfectly healthy, sub adult spider. He was only a molt or two away from adulthood, I knew that, but I was expecting a good nine more months out of him at least. He was eating well, active in his enclosure, and had shown no signs of being under the weather. Losing Cat Noir was what made me feel that there might have been something else going on here....

Ladybug:

Losing Ladybug was heartbreaking. He was a mature male, and as such he had been off his food for a little while. I did understand that he was on his way out, but I was hoping for a little bit longer. But what really hurt in this case was that I was there for the process.
I came into the front room, and I found him dangling from the side of his enclosure - he had gotten webbing wrapped around the emboli on the end of his pedipalp, and was unable to free himself. I very carefully cut away what I could with a small pair of scissors to set him free, but when I placed him on the floor of his enclosure, his poor feet kept slipping on the surfaces. He couldn't climb, and he fell onto his back several times and couldn't right himself. That's when I realised I was losing him.

Over the course of the next several hours, his movements gradually slowed down. That's when I picked him up in my hand and took him to the dining room. I'm a sentimental old cow, and I held him up into the sunlight, so that the last thing he could see was the sunset. For all I know he was thinking "Aagh! It burns! My eyes!", but I prefer to think that he was happy watching the sun set as he passed.

It hasn't escaped my notice that the majority of losses here are jumping spiders, and only one of them was a mature spood who I thought was due to go any time soon. Unfortunately, I suspect that the smaller spiders succumbed to airborne toxins.
Over the Summer, my partner and I had the entire downstairs floor recovered with vinyl covering, which includes glues, sealants etc. Additionally, we had the whole house repainted to brighten it up a bit. During this process, all of the critters were moved into a room that wasn't being painted or re-floored, and they stayed there for several weeks.
Unfortunately, they did get brought back downstairs before I was due to go back to work, so that they didn't lie up there for months, forgotten. I can only imagine that there were still paint, sealant or glue fumes still hanging in the air that I wasn't aware of. I can't think of any other reason that I might lose so many jumping spiders over such a short space of time.

I still have Wilma and Charlotte, so far. I'm hoping that they have somehow managed to escape the same fate as their shelf mates. But whether they survive or not, I have since made the decision that I won't have any more jumping spiders. I love them - They're the cutest most charismatic of my spiders. Curious, engaging, adorable. But they live such short lives, and it feels awful to go through spider after spider, name after name. So this is the end of the road for me and jumpers. From now on, I intend to focus on my tarantulas.