Ally's Eight-Legged Journey

This is Loki. He is my Hapalopus formosus spiderling. These spiders - also known as pumpkin patch spiders - are a dwarf tarantula, growing to about two and a half inches across. When Loki came to me, he was about 0.5cm, and now...I'm not actually sure he's much more than that. About 1.0cm, maybe 1.5cm. He has molted multiple times, he just seems to grow slowly. When he arrived, he was the smallest spider I'd ever had: The enclosure he is in there - and indeed is still in - is a spiderling tub from The Spider Shop, and is 9 by 9 cm. It's a small one. He still hasn't grown enough for me to move him into anything larger, and I do think he will always be my smallest spider. However, he has done some growing, so when I checked in on him this week I decided to get him out and take a comparison photograph. In this picture you can see two things. The first is that he has his adult colouration and markings. Does this mean that he's no longer a spiderling? I...

Since we have been playing musical tanks with the critters' enclosures, I thought it would be nice to give an update on Incy Wincy. He's had several months in the time that he's been with me, going from a scraggly little bald-ass spiderling to this lovely juvenile. He is a great spider to watch because - although he does spend a lot of time in his hide - he has stopped bolting away when I come to the enclosure, and he is always excavating his substrate. Like Big Spood, he is a budding architect. In this photo (which unfortunately has no gauge for size comparison) he is about the same size that my P. machala is now - maybe about 2 inches in legspan. His abdomen is bald due to kicking, and he is deperately due a molt: Well, this is him now. If I didn't know any better, I'd swear it wasn't the same tarantula. I haven't measured him, but I'd estimate his leg span to be about 5 inches across, which would make him about half of his adult size - salmon pi...

With Diablo vacating her large invertarium enclosure, it seemed to make sense that we move Big Spood into it. It wasn't much bigger in terms of area, but it was definitely deeper. This means that Big Spood will be able to dig - something that she clearly enjoys doing. We often sit and watch her as she excavates one corner of her enclosure, only to pile it up in a big tower at the opposite end. Here is Big Spood mid transfer: She has molted several times in my care, and right now I am finding it hard to picture how much smaller she was when she first arrived, so here is a photo (complete with wonky legs!) for comparison - though I'm not sure any size difference is at all visible. So now her substrate is about twice as deep, her water bowl is much larger, and she has some plastic decorations that I'm sure she probably won't even notice, (but I think that they look nice). Given that she has finally outgrown the white plastic container that she was using as a hide, I d...

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...