Ally's Eight-Legged Journey

Now that "Mini-Lolth" is home and settled, I've been able to take photos and compare his size to that of Lolth when he first arrived. I don't know if there is actually much of a size difference, but Mini-Lolth definitely feels smaller. So small, in fact, that I'm anxious about giving him a name in case he's super fragile and I lose him. Above there is Lolth on the left and Mini-Lolth on the right. While they don't really look too disimilar in size, Lolth definitely has more developed legs, and you can actually see his eyes. Without my finger in the photo for scale though, it's all conjecture. What I can show you side by side is how big Lolth is now compared to Mini-Lolth, which is a comparison that makes me very happy. That is my little finger in both pictures. When you see the spiders day in, day out, it's easy to forget just how much they've grown in your care. Seeing that makes me feel very happy, because he has gone from a tin...

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...

Yesterday I was rather aggressively threatened with a "ban hammer" in one of the tarantula groups that I joined for educating myself on my spiders. They jumped on me instantly, for posting this photo of myself "handling" my tarantula, and promoting bad animal husbandry, without even asking the circumstances. In this particular picture (below) I had accidentally knocked Lolth's enclosure onto the floor and he had free fallen 3 feet down to the ground and landed on my sock. I picked him up before he went onto my pesticide-infused carpets (I also have two cats, and cats come with the risk of fleas, so my carpets are flea treated - unfortnuately, flea treatment is no observer of species!) and took a photo to be able to assess damage before I put him into another enclosure. Once I was sure that Lolth was okay and I had calmed down, I then posted the picture to a group asking about tarantulas life stages as I was wondering whether he was a spiderling or a juvenile - a...

I am unsure whether I have mentioned this previously, but Poe - my Poecilotheria metallica - finally has a permanent name. He is now Ziggy, as in Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars. It suits him somehow. At the moment, he is not a very active spider - he has built himself a little teepee and covered it in substrate to hide in, so he spends 90% of his time in there. He only really comes out when he's hungry, though I haven't managed to get a decent photograph of that yet. He has molted since he came home, and is currently sitting somewhere between 2 and 3 cm across, (diagonally) but I rarely see him stretched out as he likes to keep his legs in a distinctive position. The front four legs get stretched out in front, and the back 4 get stretched out in the back. It can be seen in this photo, where you can also see his red mouth and his fangs: Since going into his larger braplast, I've seen almost nothing of Lolth. He has dug himself a hole to hide in. I try to...

I don't have much to say right now - my recent order hasn't arrived yet, and not a huge amount has happened. Both Loki and Pratt have molted, though I don't have pictures of them as they like to hide, but that's about it. So I am sharing these photos of some of my larger slings. Both Shelob and Lolth escaped again during a recent maintenance session on their enclosures, so I have ordered braplast tubs to upgrade their homes. Maybe they're a little small for a 1.3 litre braplast, but they definitely seem too large for the little sling boxes they are in right now. And every time they escape, they scare my daughter, which is the opposite of what I am trying to achieve here. So, long term, Shelob, Anansi, Lolth and Joy are getting moved to larger enclosures. At the same time, I intend to move Loki and Pratt back into their smaller sling tubes, as I think the boxes they are in are too big and they seem unhappy. So a major rehousing session will be imminent. In the meanti...

Just watched Lolth take down a mealworm. He tried to snatch it right out of the tweezers, so he must have been hungry. You can't see the meal worm in the photo though, because he's sitting on it, but he's getting big enough now that you can see his fangs open when he goes for something. It made me jump, I'm not gonna lie.

While the new Spoods are settling in, I thought it might be nice to see how the original three Spoods are doing. Each one of them has had one molt since they came to me, so they have slightly changed colour and have definitely gotten bigger! This is Lolth. He hasn't really changed much in colour, but he has definitely gotten larger. You can see the marking on his abdomen that I have previously mentioned. At certain angles, it looks like a human skull. Not from this angle, mind. Lolth has been pacing his enclosure, and recently made a dash for freedom when I was doing what I call "the Spood Check". He only climbed out and ran across the desk, but he scared my daughter so badly that she was sobbing. I didn't touch him, but I was able to guide him onto the lid to his enclosure and put him back in - so this is a win!! This is Shelob. She is still grey. She may not be the most flambouyant of Spoods, but she is very sweet. She mostly keeps herself to herself, hid...

This is Lolth, my Grammostola pulchripes (Chaco golden knee). Gender is currently unknown, but for naming purposes I am assuming it is female, as she is named after the Dungeons and Dragons spider goddess of the Drow, Queen of the Demonweb pits. If she turns out to be male I have no plans to change her name. She is about 1cm across, diagonally, so quite small. You can't see it in this picture, but at the moment she has a marking that looks almost like a skull on her abdomen. She was the last spider to be removed from her sling tube, but the first one to demonstrate a threat pose. So she is definitely feisty! Meet Shelob, named after the Middle Earth great spider, Spawn of Ungoliant, part spider, part demon. She is a Brachypelma verdezi (synonymous with Tlitocatl verdezi ), or Mexican rose grey. She will grow up to be grey, with pinkish orange hairs. Not an especially distinctive looking spider, but I am excited to see her grow. She was the most restrained of the three w...

Winnie has been spending a lot of time in her nest lately, I've not seen a lot of her. So I thought it was time to talk about something else: the Spoods. As well as Winnie, I now have three tarantula spiderlings. I ordered these thinking that I was further along in my arachnophobia journey than I really am. I've actually been able to put my hand in Winnie's enclosure and attempt to handle her - she hates it. She must think I'm icky because whenever she's on my hand she jumps and flops about like a fish out of water. Maybe I'm too warm, or maybe I smell funny? Maybe I just don't have enough eyes, I don't know. But the point is, I have been trying, and I take this as a very good step forward. In fact, I thought this was such a great step forward that I thought I wanted and could handle more. So on that note, meet the Spoods: The Spoods is my collective name for what is essentially Winnie's extended family. I have mentioned this before, but T...