| Spider Diary - April 2007 |
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| Saturday, 31 March 2007 | |||
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Welcome to the April 2007 Spider Diary ...and this one, I am pleased to report, has arrived nicely on time. And it's certainly all been 'go' in spider-land... Binky has moulted into a rather large young sub-adult spider, but lost a leg along the way, Legz moulted too, and of course I must introduce you to the latest small arrival, a Blue-fang skeleton tarantula... so this would make our headlines this month something like the following... This month's Top Stories...
Wherever shall we start ? It might as well be at the beginning, so I must confide in you the presence of a new bite report. Fortunately, the spider is fully recovered now. Yes - IT WAS AN APRIL FOOLS JOKE, and neither me, the spider, or my wedding tackle have come to any harm :) You can read my suspect attempt at humour here (adult content warning). There is also a full report into the improvised spider exuviotomy I was forced to learn when I had to rescue Binky from his 11th instar moult. You can read this one here. Now, a week after the moult, he has fully recovered, and was up to some photos this morning, all of which feature him in his new enormous tank, into which we painlessly transferred him last week. Here then is Binky, with 1 leg less than normal, but otherwise looking quite splendid in a way that newly moulted spiders do...All of these are well worth a full view, so don't forget to click them ! 
 
So there he is, our brave little soldier, the other side of his ordeal. Slightly less of the little too - his legspan is now around 7" and he is now challenging the size of even my largest adult spiders, and is already much bigger than Ginny. Talking of which... Today has been a very successful in taking photos of her too, so onwards we go, and here she is from the slightly unusual angle of top down !
and here she is again, a bit closer...
What a superb-looking animal she is, and stress-free as she hopefully is, doesn't feel the need to flick her opsithosomal hairs, so here is a very 'complete' looking spider. Moving on, let's have some VIDEO !!
What a nightmare recording that was - took around 40 minutes of video over 4 hours to bring you that little gem. Zebs is now a very much fatter and more content spider, and the water tube has been rescued, and the 2" hole it left in my tank defences plugged with a temporary escape prevention system... Here is a photo of her 4 days afterwards, looking, if may say so, nothing short of phenomenal...  Now, next up in today's photo-report will be young Fluffy, our favourite Peruvian Orange-stripe T. Caught out basking this morning, we see the first of her adult colours coming through nicely - see orange knee-stripes, and general tone darkening, but she also has a blue-ish tint to her this moult round, which I am pleased to be able to capture on camera. Here she is...   So - there's our latest look at a rapidly growing 7th instar spider. Let's go and look at Legz now, who's one instar on at 8th... We join her basking in the slightly unusual position of lying at the base of her tank. But we can still see her fantastic colouring, and almost impossibly long legs !!  She is also eating well after her recent moult, and has had a tank change during which she behaved absolutely perfectly. Moving on, let's discuss today's absentees form the diary - no sign of Flash, or Tenebrus this month, but both of those have had star turns in the diary in recent months, so its nice to focus on the lesser-featured for a change. But for those who wonder, here's a quick photo of Tenebrus at home taken this morning - as we can see psalmopoeus are earning a reputation with me as the most secretive animals anywhere, ever ! So - have a photo of a bamboo tube on me !  She lives right at the bottom of the bamboo tube, and seems absolutely happy to stay there. I suspect she is moulting again due to the fact that she ignored a cricket completely the other day, despite the fact that she hasn't eaten since I made the video 'Hunting with Psalmopoeus' around a month ago... Let's also have a little look at Boots, who is 4th instar and loving it - always out in the open, always running out to see what food is arriving, and developing an extremely endearing little personality. He she is, showing us the very first appearance of some 'blue leg action'...  I love her chaotic but plentiful webbing which seems to form a central pillar in her tank. She'll be moving out of that one soon, I'd imagine... better start building her another one... And now I must finish this months diary by introducing you to the latest addition. Last month we had some preview video of her running all over me as she moved in, but this is the first diary in which we officially meet the un-originally named 'Blue', who is, you might remember, a Blue-fang Skeleton Tarantula, Ephebopus cyanognathus. Hailing originally from Singapore, these spiders have bright blue chelicerae from birth to adulthood, and are covered in zingy orange hairs pretty much everywhere else. Not overly aggressive, but fairly large, these are quite rare in the hobby, and I am very pleased to have the opportunity to look after one as it grows. And growing is something she badly needs to do. Here she is before she moved in to her tank...  When she first got here she was barely 5 mm long, and was merely days old. In my care she has moved into a new home (far too large it now turns out) moulted once, and eaten a mashed pinhead cricket or 2 as she heads for 3rd instar. We can see her in the following photo having set up house in one tiny 1cm corner of the tank, nearest the heat mat, but she remains so small at the moment that photos of any description are rather tricky to get. Hopefully, we'll get to watch her grow into a wonderful adult spider with some quite majestic colouring.  And I do believe we have reached the end of another exciting diary - I do hope you have enjoyed this months foray into the wonders of the arachno-world ! See you all next month, hopefully ! Take care - Binky, Zebs, Ginny, Legz, Flash, Tenebrus, Boots, Fluffy, Blue and me... |
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| Last Updated ( Sunday, 01 April 2007 ) | |||
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