Ally's Eight-Legged Journey

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!

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...

I learned something interesting tonight. I was out pretty late for a concert in London, so by the time I got home and turned on the front room light, it had already been dark for several hours. When I get in, the first thing I like to do is to go over to the Critter Corner and check on the critters. When I did, I found Catchy in her tank, looking at me like this: As you can see, her eyes have completely changed colour. Usually her eyes are the same vibrant green as the rest of her body (see below) but tonight, they were a tanned brown colour. Initially, I thought something was wrong - but wrong in the sense of "maybe she's preparing to molt" rather than "oh no, there's something wrong with her eyes". So I found myself doing a little bit of late night drunken research into Mantis vision. One of the first things I discovered was that mantises have five eyes, rather than two. On the image below, (which I shamelessly stole from the internet and now I can...

Just a quickie post today - as I was leaving for work this morning I happened to notice that Catchy was in the process of molting, so I snapped a picture. I can't help but feel like she won't fit in her enclosure for much longer, so maybe I should be on the look out for a larger arboreal tank. ...Yes, that is a half eaten mealworm in her enclosure, as I fed her yesterday and I guess she wasn't really that hungry. (Not a surprise if she was prepping for a molt!)

I was recently asked to share pictures of my mantises rather than my spiders for a change (apparently my friends aren't as fond of the wee little beasties as I am, go figure!) I am always happy to oblige with pictures of my critters, regardless of what they are, so here are pictures of Sykes, Catchy, and Tyson. Unfortunately I lost Evander, my second flower mantis, recently. He went through a period of refusing to eat. No matter how many fruit flies I dropped into his enclosure, he just wasn't interested, and he passed right before I left for Amsterdam. I am obviously very disappointed, but this is nature and I tried my best. This is why mantises have so many babies - some of them just don't survive, it's called "failure to thrive". Sykes is my dead leaf mantis, Deroplatys desiccata . He's had two or three molts since I got him, but his rate of growth is so slow that I barely notice the difference at the moment. He's not much bigger than when I...

Never am I more aware of the differences between mantises and spiders than during feeding time - feeding Catchy can be quite traumatic if you're an extremely empathetic person, or not used to how she feeds. It definitely opens up a whole host of questions regarding the ethics of keeping invertebrates as live foods for other pets. All of my invertebrates eat live food. That is their nature. And so I keep several sources of live food - usually fruit flies, green bottles, mealworms, and locusts. They all have enclosures, with hides, occasional spritzes for water, and fresh food. They're looked after as though they're my pets, but their ultimate fate is to be eaten by larger critters. My spiders kill their prey, albeit slowly, but injecting them with venom which paralyses them while their insides turn to mush. My scorpion at least does paralyse his prey, but he tears them apart whilst they're still alive and pre digests them on the floor. Catchy, unfortunately, just...

I will be going away in a few days - a weekend break to Amsterdam with my partner. I'm not worried about the critters at all, as I plan on spritzing them before I leave, and then that's all they should need until I get back. The biggest task is making sure that whoever wants to eat has eaten before I leave, so that none of them are too hungry. This is more important for the smaller ones, the slings and the smaller mantises, etc, as I'm assuming that their metabolisms are faster and that they can't go as long between meals as the larger ones. This is a big assumption based on mammals, mind. I am trying to get some decent feeding photos in the process, so hopefully there will be plenty to post over the upcoming few days. Unfortunately, Catchy wasn't at all interested in food on this occasion. She's pretty well fed and growing nicely, so it's not a cause for concern. But I was able to get this photograph, and when compared to a photo taken four months ag...

I fed Catchy tonight. I am learning that she doesn't like worms, but prefers greenbottles. Unfortunately, she needs several green bottles to fill her up so I may need to look around for something larger soon. Fortunately, she only eats sporadically, so it's not a huge issue right now. This was Catchy when I first got her: And this is Catchy now! This is the exact same enclosure in the background, which I hope gives some indication of how much she's grown. She has only molted about 4 or 5 times, but she grows significantly each time. I do have other mantises - two Yunnan flower mantises and a dead leaf mantis. They are growing too, but not nearly at the rate that Catchy is. I absolutely adore looking at her - Especially when she looks at me back and the little black dots appear in her eyes looking almost like pupils. She definitely has character.

Time for a non-spood related post. Catchy. Catchy is definitely my favourite mantis. I'm not sure whether it's because she was my first or is my biggest, but I love her. She's a lot of fun to get out and handle, and feeding times are always entertaining. Well, usually anyway. At her last feeding, she again batted the prey away. She really didn't want to take the food she had been offered, despite me offering it several times. By now, I know that this means a molt is imminent, so when my daughter came to me and told me "Mummy, Catchy's bum is grey!" I knew that she was preparing a shed. Lo and behold, I woke up the next morning to this: I can't get her out as yet to show off her new size as she needs to harden up - I would be scared of injuring her. But she is just getting bigger and bigger, at an amazing rate. It is fascinating to watch. My other mantids have each had one molt since arriving, and they're a fraction of her size. She reall...

Tyson. Tyson, Tyson, Tyson.... I love this little mantis - he is full of personality, he loves to eat, he loves to come out and be handled. I especially love that after I named him Tyson for his little boxing gloves, I discovered that he also likes to nibble me! So he boxes and he bites, and I love that he is just living up to his name in every way. Here he is giving my finger a little nibble. He likes to walk up my finger, nibbling as he goes. He is so small right now that I don't even feel it, but I do think it's incredibly cute. He moulted this week, for the first time since he got here. When Catchy molts, she looks significantly bigger each time, but that's not the case with Tyson. Maybe Tyson is just a slower growing species, but I didn't even realise he had moulted until I saw his shed skin lying on the floor. And since we're talking about mantids, I thought we might focus on Catchy for a little bit. Catchy is definitely a favourite invertebrate of m...

Before I went out for the night on Saturday night, I decided to feed and water the spoods early. Catchy refused food, for only the second time since he arrived to my house. Since the last time he refused food I subsequently discovered that he had just molted, I let him be. And lo and behold, when I got back from London the following morning, there was a brand new moult hanging from the roof of his cage. I love seeing my critters after they molt - they get so much bigger and their markings change, so it's like getting a whole new critter every time. So on that note, here's Catchy in his brand new clothes.

My flower mantis has a name! I took a photo of him on my hand (after a particularly large lunch) and he looked about ready to punch me in the face. So his name is Tyson, after the famous boxer. And let's face it - if you're a bug, he's just as likely to bite you too! So here are Tyson, and Catchy, who seems to have tripled in size.

I hope everyone has had a great new years celebration? I am hoping that my 2024 continues in a better way to the way 2023 ended... And on that note - For the first post of the new year: Catchy the giant praying mantis, and Fred the regal jumping spider.

So, now that my new spoods have had a little time to settle in, it is time to introduce them. Obviously, I have already mentioned Fred, the regal jumping spider, but this post is for the Spoods. As with the original three Spoods, I do not know the sexes of these animals, but the names are what they are. First up is Joy. Joy was named by my daughter. She is a Salmon pink birdeater from Brazil, or Lasiodora parahybana . She may be small now - approximately 2cm DLS (diagonal leg span) - but at her full size she could be up to 11 inches. My daughter named this spider, so I am hoping that Joy does in fact turn out to be a female - I don't want to be the one to explain to her that Joy is a boy spider with a girls name. At this stage she reminds me very much of how Lolth looked prior to her first molt. But this makes sense, as when they are both adults they will have very similar colours and markings, even if their sizes are different. Salmon Pink birdeater adult: Catchy Camouflag...