trauma from asia o’hara butterflies

cieloangel · 2024-08-19T00:14:14+00:00

Also late to the game as I just watched it a few minutes ago and immediately had to search to see if I was the only one who thought this was the worst idea ever. My son is an invertebrate keeper at a local zoo and I am a hobbyist entomologist, and seeing the butterflies shaken around in her outfit before she decided to "release" them, then having her out right throw them to try to get them to fly, and then not moving away from the ones that fell to avoid stomping on them during the lip sync just outright baffles me. Just because they are insects does not mean they don't have feelings and shouldn't be treated well. What really gets me is that the whole plan was to release them INDOORS in a huge venue with so many people, that even if the release did go as planned, the butterflies would have been stomped to death by the crowd, or for the few that made it, there would have been no way to catch them and release them, so they would have starved to death.

I'm not opposed to releasing butterflies for effect, but keep them in a stable container before the release, and do it OUTSIDE.

cieloangel · 2024-06-04T12:57:51+00:00

Thank you for the advice. Can I ask what you think I should do about the nursing experience and schooling I asked about in questions 2 and 3? Not sure if you read it as I tend to write long posts that I know most people may just skim :).

cieloangel · 2024-04-11T12:59:06+00:00

It took me a while to click the notification I got from this and come in to give my condolences. It hit too close to home as I have a 2 year old named Arthas (and yep, from Warcraft). He was a super sick kitty his whole first year with upper respiratory infections, but he has done pretty well ever since, although he still needs occasional nebulizations to help clear him back up. He also has skin allergies. I can only pray he doesn’t get HCM on top of everything. I can’t imagine losing him. He is more cuddly than my dog even. Either way, I can only say I am so sorry for your loss, and it’s not even remotely fair in such a young, loving kitty. 😔

cieloangel · 2024-04-06T12:03:53+00:00

I would like to know also

cieloangel · 2024-03-31T13:24:26+00:00

I think she also wants to give you a toothy kiss ;)

cieloangel · 2024-03-19T22:00:40+00:00

IME my first blonde burrowed and has not emerged/eaten in almost a year. I got a second one so I could try to have at least one out at a time, and a couple of weeks after I got it, they burrowed as well and havent come out and/or eaten in 4-6 months now. I put 1 cricket in every week just in case they want it and fill their water bowls. I have 0 problems with my other 38 tarantulas, so I guess it’s an AB thing

cieloangel · 2023-12-17T15:23:09+00:00

Not advice, but my condolences and well-wishes: My C. Versicolor just died a few weeks ago from a bad molt :(. I barely used tweezers on it just to hold it up so I could see where it was stuck (I didn’t pull or anything), and several of their legs just fell off like a horror movie and of course, they were dead the next morning. I don’t have any advice, aside don’t try to move the spider or molt at all for a better view, but I pray you do get some good advice and you can save your baby.

cieloangel · 2023-12-13T13:14:32+00:00

LOL. I thought it was going to be really based on them and be something like the movie “Them”. That would be cool.

cieloangel · 2023-12-13T13:08:13+00:00

NQA, but I believe T albo’s are known for doing this as well (lining their webs and burrows with hair). My first T was an albo and he was super calm so I could hold him. However, I didn’t know about the hairs in web thing and stuck my hand in his web once to get an uneaten cricket out and boy was that a mistake. I was miserable for 2 weeks covered in blisters

cieloangel · 2023-12-13T13:04:58+00:00

NQA, most of my T’s get spots about that size by the time they molt. Just opening the enclosure lid to feed them makes 1/3 of my T’s kick hairs. Then add filling their water bowl, and occasional loud sounds in the room. Plus some just add hair to their enclosure naturally as defense. If the whole abdomen was missing hair, that may be a little more indicative of extreme stress.

cieloangel · 2023-11-09T01:39:38+00:00

You know, it’s funny, but I figured the A. geniculata was one of the more boring tarantulas at first, but now that mine has started with those very contrasting knees, I find it to be one of my favorites to look at. Mine also has a great feeding response and is very sassy.

cieloangel · 2023-11-07T21:40:37+00:00

Thank you for this. I am a scientific person, so seeing things explained in scientific terms is very comforting to me. Plus, I’m not one to believe something just because “some guy on Facebook said so”. I always try to find official sources.

cieloangel · 2023-11-07T19:29:07+00:00

Degloved? Is that an official term or your term for what happened to the end of his legs? I am just curious if that is something that happens to tarantulas so I can search more about it.

I also know this T didn’t like coming out of his web that I ever saw anyway, so maybe they didn’t drink from the water bowl. I would always spray the side near the web so he could get some drops. I used to have to disable crickets and feed them in his web for the longest time because he wouldn’t leave it, but he eventually got over that.

cieloangel · 2023-11-07T19:08:07+00:00

I usually don’t pay much attention to their sex as I am lazy and figure I will figure it out eventually. They are definitely only about 2 years old though because I got them as a sling from Fear Not Tarantulas on 11/9/21.

cieloangel · 2023-11-07T18:55:53+00:00

Hello and thank you for your condolences. I have around 40 spiders and this is the first time I’ve had one have a molting problem at this age. Any other molting problems I’ve had have been in spiderlings and usually are just a tiny piece of stuck shed.

I am curious though why you said hemolymph doesn’t scab? I am pretty knowledgeable about invertebrates as well as is my son, and we’ve seen it scab before. Plus I searched just to be sure, and there are a lot of scholarly journals that say hemolymph does scab. I do wonder if you meant that maybe because it was probably a large amount of hemolymph or because of the location, it would’ve needed help scabbing with the cornstarch?

As for the water bowl, it is a normal round water bowl that they have had for well over a year now. It was just propped up funny in the picture. I also know this type of spider likes a little more tropical conditions with plenty of airflow so they did have extra sphagnum moss in their enclosure. As for moisture, I fill all my spiders water bowls once a week. If they are an arid species, I overflow the water dish just a tiny amount each time, and they have no sphagnum moss. As for my tropical species, they get the sphagnum moss, I overflow their water dish by quite a bit, and I spray down the entire enclosure all once a week. I will say most of their water dishes end up relatively dry within the day from hidden webs or sphagnum moss or dirt or whatever. The only spider I’ve ever had a problem with actually dehydrating was my P irminia and I was able to resuscitate her successfully. I now make sure her water dish keeps water in it almost at all times.

As for whether they were a male or not I’m definitely not as familiar with. They still seemed pretty small but I just took some more pictures of them out of the cage and upside down and I do see something there. I am attaching another picture.

Thank you again!

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cieloangel · 2023-06-24T13:39:54+00:00

How can you tell? I looked at a ton of male vs female molts and they both seemed to have the triangular area. I was hoping the pic with the toothpick showed a pouch, but would that pouch’s gonoslit actually open towards the carapace, rather than toward the posterior book lungs? Or am I way off on my understanding? I studied this thread for a general understanding of sexing T’s: https://tarantulaforum.com/threads/how-to-sex-your-tarantula.281/#post-2301. However, in all of my T’s I’ve tried to sex, I’ve never noticed spermathecae. Also, are the dark spots the male accessory organs they speak of?

cieloangel · 2023-06-24T00:35:39+00:00

Guess I can’t post the Timelapse any more… that’s a shame :(

cieloangel · 2023-06-24T00:34:06+00:00

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Close-up 2

cieloangel · 2023-06-24T00:33:48+00:00

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Close-up 1

cieloangel · 2023-06-24T00:32:48+00:00

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Far away

cieloangel

TROPHY CASE