Ally's Eight-Legged Journey

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...

And I've done it again... I keep saying I've got enough critters, but then I put in another order - I just can't help myself! A lot of it is because of my "wishlist", which I have shared several times on this blog. As a regular customer of The Spider Shop , I am signed up to their newsletter so that I can see what they have coming in, when they get it. Currently I am most interested in the T. seladonia Brazilian jewel dwarf tarantula - an absolutely gorgeous arboreal trapdoor tarantula with a pink and blue sheen to it's abdomen, but which costs about £90 for a 0.5cm spiderling, and can often fail to thrive in captivity if it fails to build a trapdoor. As such, it's a risky purchase that I talk myself out of every time they come in stock, and they are never in stock for very long. This week, however, a spider came along which I was very interested in - Pamphobeteus sp. machalla . A terrestrial tarantula from South America, these spiders are orange wi...