Ally's Eight-Legged Journey

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...

Tyson gave me a surprise this evening. Please note that I still don't know what sex Tyson is - I originally suspected female, but now I'm not sure. For the purposes of this post I will refer to Tyson as a "he", as his name is masculine. I may update his gender in later posts. Tyson is one of my two smaller mantises - a Yunnan flower mantis. He's just over an inch long, with an olive green and white body, and lovely purple eyes. I always knew that he was going to be smaller than Catchy, but I have to confess, I thought he'd get bigger than he has done. I have been waiting on a delivery of fruit flies for my smaller critters and they finally arrived today, so I was going from tank to tank, spritzing the smaller cages and then dropping some fruit flies in for them. I don't have many critters that still need fruitflies - the two smaller mantises, Loki my dwarf tarantula sling, and Pratt my curly hair sling. The two slings are about a centimeter across, ...

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...

It's moving day! The spoods are finally making the big trek downstairs! There is still a lot to do - I am currently using desk lamps to light the critters from above - eventually I want to make the switch to LED light strips, which I would fix along the underneath of the shelves to light them from above in all directions. Additionally, I had considered getting larger heat mats which I would have fixed to the back walls to radiate heat outwwards. Now I'm contemplating getting a space heater, just to heat that little corner. It's not an issue at this time of year as this room is warm enough for them, but in the Winter they will definitely need some additional heating to keep them comfortable. What I do have so far are some little decorations. Such as this sign, which I found for about £3 on Temu: Over time, I am sure that the spiders will start to migrate, filling up the rest of the shelves as they get larger enclosures, or as I add to my collection. I wouldn't mind...

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!)

A quick look at how I keep my enclosures. Currently, the enclosures are in my guest bedroom, stacked on a shelf against the wall. They used to be nicely spaced, with plenty of room around each enclosure for ventilation. As the critters have grown, they've been upgraded to larger enclosures taking up all of that spare space, so now I have next to no space to upgrade them should they grow any more. The plan for the future is to move all of the enclosures down into the living room, where I've been clearing a set of shelves for them. Long term, the plan is to have LED lighting for each shelf, and to run a heat mat along the back wall so that on cooler days, there is heat radiating from behind the enclosures. I want to make the Spoods a display/centrepiece for when people visit, (should they dar as most of my friends are arachnophobic themselves!) Here is the current set-up. My partner once commented that they look like spider skyscrapers with the way I have them stacked, so ...

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.

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.

So after saying that I wouldn't order any more insects, I have ordered more insects. This time, I have ordered a giant dead leaf mantis Deroplatys desiccata , two Mozambique fire millipedes Centrobolus splendidus , and..... another mystery box. As if I didn't learn the first time. This time, I have specifically requested no scorpions (along with no old world T's, and no bitey/stingy things) and explained that I do not have an enclosure large enough for such things. I don't even know why I'm buying them any more. I love them, and they fascinate me - like little tiny mech suits - but I am running out of space. This absolutely has to be my last purchase. And I'm asking people to help hold me to that! When I move house and have a larger space, then I can rethink things. For now though, I must start being a responsible adult (very boring!) Deroplatys desiccata Centrobolus splendidus

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.

Wow. I am a very happy spood keeper. I have got home, and transferred all of my spoods into their new homes. Because of sizing, I did not have enough Braplast tubs to rehouse all of the original spoods, so Shelob remains unhoused. But as she is the smallest of the three, she can wait another molt or so. Heterometrus laoticus We might as well start with the biggest surprise. This was a difficult critter to transfer. I was unprepared for a scorpion - I don't keep scorpions at all, and nothing I own has gotten big enough for me to have spare enclosures hanging around or anything, so I had to use what was available to me and borrow an enclosure from work. It's not really suitable - it doesn't have cross ventilation and it's not wide enough - but I have since ordered a glass terrarium from TSS and he will be rehoused again once it arrived. Fortunately, I had enough cork bark and substrate hanging around that I was able to throw a house together, and I can refine it later on....