| Spider Diary - September 2007 |
|
|
|
| Saturday, 31 March 2007 | ||
|
Welcome to September 2007's Spider Diary I know it's late, but thats because, surprise surprise, it's all been going on over here, and video editing takes ages! So we have another feature-packed edition of the diaries for you. Lets get straight in there with... This month's Top Stories...
Today we start off with the moulting wonders of my particular spider universe... yes, Ginny moulted this last month, and so did Binky, and so did little Boots. All of them were victorious, and we have newly emerged spiders who all look very bright and zingy, and still have everything in the right place... one of us has more bits than they had last time round ! More about that later... Lets see young Boots, our 7th instar Chromatopelma cyaneopubescens, or Greenbottle Blue Tarantula...  Proudly sitting astride her former self...  ...and now posing for the photos... So there we go - much brighter blue legs, a zingier carapace, and more wonderfully vibrant orange opisthosomal hairs... Next up, for those that haven't seen it, we are pleased to present another video first for the diaries: Here's Ginny showing us her annual moult. Filmed on both the usual hand-held camera and webcam, but this time the latter is controlled by movement detection software, and simply takes a single photo every time movement is detected in-frame. This is how we can condense what was actually a 6 or 7 hour event into 5 minutes, or so... enjoy... Well I hope you found that as fascinating as I did... believe it or not, we'll surpass even that later in this very edition of the diary... in the meantime, let's go zooming across and have a catch-up with a few of our smaller residents... Blue, our smallest spiderling, has not been very good so far in the photo department. It seems Blue-Fang T's are supremely shy by nature, possibly to an even greater extent than Tenebrus, our perpetually hiding Sun Tiger. However, it may be because she is still very young, and therefore not so confident. As luck would have it, however, this month, she came out for a wander in response to some directional misting... at last we can see her beautiful yellow striped feet, orange lesg, metallic green opisthosoma, and you guessed it; the blue fangs for which she is named. The more observant among you may notice that it is actually her chelicerae that are blue, rather than the fangs themselves, which are black so far... anyway - here she is, on her first public outing...  Here she is, at burrow mouth, analysing how the air has changed... (I've just misted, so primarily it is wetter!)  coming out to investigate, and a first flash of blue...  and here she is, out in the open, possibly for the first time since she moved in 3 months ago ! Let's move swiftly on, and visit our arboreal wonders... Tenebrus, not featuring today is doing her 'I'll stay in my bamboo tube all day AND all night' routine, only once making an appearance to kick out the rubbish when I wasn't looking. Or rather, I was, but the camera wasn't. She is looking well, you'll be pleased to know, and judging my the disappearing crickets in her tank, she's eating well too. Let's go and see our largest arboreal now, its our 9th instar Legz, Sri-Lankan Ornamental. Ooh, she's very big now. Here's a photo or 2...  Growing girl...  Knows where the radiator is... Meanwhile, over with young Flash, webbing has been extended, entrances have been closed off, so we might imagine a moult is being prepared for... let's have a pic of her latest tube tunnel expansion plans...(further webbing my roof shut, I note)...  Well worth a click for a full view, that one... Right, just time for a quick shot of Fluffy, our peruvian orange-stripe, who is now at the 2" mark, and is getting very brave. Almost never hides now, and we can begin to see her colours coming though, although at the moment she looks like a slightly dirtier version of Ginny ! Here she is, blending in perfectly with the background. I wonder if she is aware of this...  Pooing in the waterbowl ? I sincerely hope not. And lastly, for today, onto the star attraction, its Binky, and the amazing re-growing leg. Once again, we are lucky enough to have the whole moult captured on video from initial back-flip to end clear-up, and we have an opportunity to try and see just where 7 cm of leg have come from that was just not there before ! My puzzlement lies mainly in the fact that there was only a hollow socket right at the leg/body joint where that leg should have been, and knowing the structures in the prosoma, which I believe to be leg muscles, and a central anchoring protuberance to which these muscles are connected, I just can't see where 7 cm of leg has possibly had room to grow, even if, as I suspect, it was only fully 'inflated' when the spider was clear of the moult. If anyone has suggestions for how this is so, I'd love to hear them. But here's the video, which is 9 hours down to 7 and a half minutes, again, due to the wonders of motion capture videocams. Much clearer than Ginny's moult above, Binky helpfully chose to do it right by the glass... I'll hand over to her... And now an extra pic of what she looked like after the moult - again click for full size versions, which are much clearer than on the video...  A brand new Binky, astride a thick moulting mat. And that's where we leave it today... hope you enjoyed this months diary.. see you next time :) Thanks for reading and take care... ZBD, Ginny, Legz, Fluffy, Tenebrus, Boots, Flash, Blue, Binky & me... |
||
| Last Updated ( Saturday, 08 September 2007 ) | ||
| < Prev | Next > |
|---|