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**Kevin Girling** · 20-06-06, 05:28 PM

Hi Neil

This is my first post on this site, and I have only had a Tarantula for a couple of months so I may be wrong but........

I also have a Red Knee, and mine does the same thing after a feed. According to all the literature it is laying down silk to form a feeding mat. Mine does it too. It catches the cricket, waits a couple of mins for the venom to work, and then starts slowly going round and round in circles for about a minute or two, laying silk and arranging it with its rear legs. It then drops the cricket on the silk (although it is difficult to see the silk), lays some more silk on the cricket and then picks the cricket up again, and continies to wrap it up before eating it.

I believe it is designed to stop the cricket escaping if it were to recover from the venom, and enabling the spider to catch another one if it were to happen along.

The dance has all sorts of nick-names, but I call it the dance of death!!!

My spider had a small bald patch before its first moult with me, and then it moulted again 2 weeks later(!!!!!?????) and did not have time to generate a bald patch at all!!! That was last week. I think the moult duration seems to be linked somehow to food availability as well as temperature.

Weird!

Apparently, the colour of the bare patch will darken before a moult.

**Neil Martin** · 22-06-06, 07:27 PM

Cheers Kevin, mine doesn't do the "cricket wrapping" part but does the dance, although I'm yet to actually spot any webbing?

I have had mine for 6 weeks now and at 60-70mm end to end I would guess it is due to moult in the next few weeks (I understand they do it 2,3 or 4 times a year when young?)

It is looking pretty tatty at the back now, I'm ashamed to show it to anyone

**sarah Smith** · 22-06-06, 10:47 PM

The feeding dance is a seprate thing to the hair loss and not conected at all. Yes it is normal for them to lose hairs as they start to go pre moult and not all have the same hair loss pattern.

**Phil Rea** · 23-06-06, 10:37 AM

Re: Abdomen Hairs

Originally posted by Neil Martin

Second post from me today, so bear with me!

My B.Smithi had a full abdomen of hairs a month ago but I have noticed that when it eats, it does a little circular dance and scratches away near it's spinnerets with it's rear legs.

It has only momentarily flicked hairs at me twice when I have gone into the tank and startled it, so I don't think that is the cause?

It now has a weird looking sort of mohican whereby the top half has hair and the bottom half is bald. It does not look like the typical pre-moult bald patch I have seen photo's of, which is the whole back end being bald.

Is this a normal process that they go through in terms of hair loss pre-moult? The spider is juvenile (CB'04) and I don't know when it moulted before I had it, so it may well be getting ready?

It's not laying down a feeding mat by the sounds of it, it's doing what one of my B. emilia females does when you feed her i.e. kicking hairs in all directions.

It's normal behaviour but varies from spider to spider (my other emilia doesn't do it at all)

**Mike Shaw** · 02-07-06, 08:04 AM

From what I can gather quite a few spider's flick urticating hairs into their webbing.
If you get a small lazer light or torch and shine it under the t while it feeds you will see very fine webbing stretching from the ground up to the prey.
The dance however they all do(i think) this is what I call the feeding waltz.

cheers Mike.

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