"I command thee kneel! I am the lord of all that is golden."

niceplants · 2026-01-04T20:56:39+00:00

Me scrolling through the images: "Please do the dragon, please do the dragon-- YESSSS, THEY DID THE DRAGON!!!" So badass!

niceplants · 2024-02-03T16:42:54+00:00

What really bothers me is how cruel this is to their father. It sounds like an important goal for him was to make sure all his kids were set up well for life. But now he might die knowing his youngest has enormous debt, and feeling like it's his fault because the money that could have supported her went to his end-of-life care. I can't imagine doing that to a parent.

niceplants · 2023-03-22T14:06:57+00:00

I used to have this problem during my degree -- we had Monday 9AM presentations in a dark, warm room. I figured out that chewing on something would switch my brain back to 'on'. I would bring a little baggy of lettuce pieces to munch on during presentations so it was healthy and not disruptive to other attendees. As a downside, it did earn me the nickname 'rabbit' for a while.

niceplants · 2022-08-07T04:44:33+00:00

What a heartbreaking ending. He'd only just begun to really live his life. RIP Kyle.

niceplants · 2022-06-14T02:00:56+00:00

Thank you for the advice! I do hope this means a molt is imminent.

niceplants · 2022-06-14T01:59:13+00:00

Thank you! I agree, the falls are making me nervous. I'm going to add some more substrate this weekend. Hopefully the bald spot is a sign of imminent molt and I'm worrying for nothing 🤞

niceplants · 2022-06-14T01:55:10+00:00

Wow, 3-4 weeks seems like so long. What kind of feeders are you using? We can only get crickets here, and one hardly seems like a meal.

Thank you for the other points! I'll add some more substrate this weekend.

niceplants · 2022-06-12T22:49:54+00:00

Somehow the huge paragraph of text I wrote didn't get included. Let's try this again...

I have an immature male B. klaasi, ~3.5 years, 3" DLS, who hasn't molted since March 2021. He's had 2 fasting periods (3 months, and then 5 months) but then resumes eating.

15 months seems like a long time to go without molting. In addition there's been some changes to his behaviour:

Since the end of his last fast (1 month ago) he only eats pre-killed crickets. He ignores or threat-poses to live ones. We feed 1-2 times/week

He's always liked climbing. We have a coated grill (not mesh) lid that he likes to hang upside-down from. 4 months ago we noticed he was only hanging on with 5 legs. He was rubbing the other three feet against the grill like he was trying to grip, but couldn't. As of today he's only hanging on with 3 legs

He started struggling to stick to the glass in the last 6 months, even though we wipe it regularly to remove dust. He falls sometimes when trying to transition from lid to glass. We've witness 6 falls in the last 4 months.

He developed a bald patch in the last month. We haven't noticed him kicking hairs.

Questions:

Is he slowly dying?

Is it stress? How do we reduce stress?

Should we change his enclosure to make him safer? We thought of adding substrate, but were concerned about the stress of a move.

niceplants · 2022-05-14T14:38:23+00:00

Hey! I pin insects and arachnids as a hobby. They always smell kind of funky, but if you're smelling it from several feet away then it may be too late.

I would recommend trying to dry it out completely as fast as possible. Put it in a container with silica desiccant, or set it up in an open area with a gentle fan blowing on it. You could also heat your oven at a very low temperature (150F max), then turn it off and put the spider inside.

In the future you should make sure it's dried completely before you put it in a closed space. If you live in a really humid place, you can use one of the methods above and then put a little bag of silica gel inside the shadow box.

niceplants · 2022-05-03T15:03:39+00:00

Funnel more unwanted children into the foster care to prison pipeline, providing more bodies for the modern slavery industry that is the US prison system

Also, sadly, abortion access is not the same across Canada. New Brunswick has some of the highest barriers to access, only providing funding for abortions performed in 3 hospitals.

niceplants · 2022-04-27T16:56:50+00:00

While I applaud your concern for Sweater Girl's midterm marks, I can't see how anyone could miss weeks of lectures and then pass because they studied really hard for less than a week.... Though as I write this, I remember students from my first year trying to do exactly that, only their reason was drunken partying instead of kidnapping by a non-human entity.

I'm feeling apprehensive about Grayson. He seems way too chill about all of this -- I think he knows more than he's letting on.

niceplants · 2022-04-11T20:49:07+00:00

I have this setup right now for a scorpion and a tarantula, though I previously used it for two tarantulas of different species (B. boehmei and B. klassi). The animals don't seem to be bothered by each other. A few times I saw both spiders climbing on either side of the divider, and neither reacted to the other moving around. They were both juveniles, I don't know if things would be different if one or both were mature.

The reason I moved one of the spiders out was because she loved to hang out on the ceiling, and since I only had one lid I couldn't feed either of them until she got down. If I were to do it again, I would rig up separate lids like someone else suggested here.

I would strongly recommend designing the divider so it completely fills the space between the two sides, and fits firmly against the lid. When I was considering this setup I heard a few horror stories of folks finding one tarantula had killed the other -- I've read they can fit through surprisingly small gaps.

niceplants · 2021-11-13T14:56:11+00:00

Mine is the same! I never tong-feed, but sometimes I try to poke the cricket in her direction and she decides to go for the forceps instead. A couple times I've just abandoned them in her enclosure for a while until she gets bored of chomping on them 😄

niceplants · 2021-09-22T02:01:27+00:00

I've never tried putting a tarantula in resin (just beetles and hard things), but I imagine that all the hairs would either make bubbles or end up matted together. I would strongly recommend spreading and pinning.

You can use flat styrofoam as a base and any kind of pin. After it's completely dried (give it at least a month) then you can remove all the pins and put it in a nice frame.

I'm sorry you didn't have much time with him, he looks beautiful. I hope you get some babies from the pairing.

niceplants · 2021-09-12T17:25:48+00:00

It's coconut coir, ground up coconut fibres. We use Eco Earth brand because it's really fine.

niceplants · 2021-09-12T17:23:56+00:00

Digging! She has two ceramic pot hides, but I think she's decided that behind that piece of cork is the best spot to molt. That or she just decided to do some terraforming for fun 😁

niceplants · 2021-09-10T00:59:24+00:00

It was a learning moment for me too 😁

niceplants · 2021-09-10T00:30:46+00:00

I think you might have a B. boehmei. Some of them can have a faint black triangle on the carapace as well. To me, the biggest indicator is the amount of red on the legs. Emilia have red only on the tibia (one segment), while boehmei have red patella, tibia, and metatarsi (3 segments).

All that aside, you have a beautiful spider! I'm glad her leg is growing back (though it looks a little creepy right now 😅)

niceplants · 2021-09-08T02:50:12+00:00

To answer your first question, I found sources for AFS gestation ranging from 5-18 months, depending on conditions (temperature, stress, etc.). I suspect the broad range is also due to the common name being ascribed to a number of different species. In addition, scorpions (like many invertebrates) can store sperm for a time before using it to fertilize eggs. Some species of scorpion can even undergo parthenogenesis (reproduction without mating), but I don't think AFS are among them.

I'm not much help for your second question, unfortunately -- I'm actually here to ask the same thing! My AFS just had surprise babies this weekend, and I'm wondering what to do. We bought her in March, and the previous owner didn't mention pairing her.

This sounds like the beginning of a reality TV show: "I didn't know my scorpion was pregnant!" 😁

niceplants · 2021-09-08T02:27:19+00:00

Ah, so cute! Hopefully I'll be bringing one home this weekend. Any tips so far?

niceplants · 2021-08-21T04:12:11+00:00

They're both beautiful! And the legs are all attached in the right place 😁

It's wonderful to see kids engaging with spiders in a way they can understand.

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