Tiniest death curl yet

[Kate Arbon]

Came home from uni today to find one of my 1cm E. truculentus slings in a death curl. I was baffled really cos yesterday it ate a cricket and seemed fine. Now I have a horrible feeling that the sun has been shining on its vial all day and practically cooked it The sun never used to reach the box where I keep my slings but I think as its gotten higher through spring the sunlight on my floor has slowly moved to the box. Needless to say I have now moved the box under my desk!

Anyway, the little Euathlus was curled up but still alive, barely moving when I opened the pot. I put it in an ICU with wet tissue hoping it would drink. After about an hour and a half it hadn't changed and I didn't even know if it was still alive. I used a paintbrush to gently roll it onto its back and then put a single tiny droplet of water onto its mouth, it was huge compared to the sling, looked like it was chewing on a football. Left it like that for a while. Also moved the ICU onto a heatmat. Hadn't wanted to heat it at first in case it steamed the sling but I realised that the wet tissue was quite cold which can't have been doing it any good.

After about ten minutes I got a response. The little guy kicked out and flipped himself back over. Now he is alternating between sitting still for a while and staggering a few cm every now and then. He can't straighten his legs and has to walk by jerking forward. He's already managed to trip himself upside down again twice and I've righted him gently so he doesn't waste energy flipping himself back up. I hope he's drinking from the tissue but he's so small it's hard to tell. But he is more active than he was an hour ago so here's hoping he wants to live!

[Peter Lacey]

Nice one Kate, seems you've brought him back from the death, perhaps you should call him Lazarus
Of course its making me wonder should I have done the same for mine but sometimes we learn the hard way.
I put a blind up on my window in the loft to stop the sun shining thru onto my spids.
Hope he makes a full recovery.

[Kate Arbon]

It's not looking so good any more. He was looking up for a while, trying to stretch his legs, but now he hasn't moved in ages and is curling up again. I rolled him over and tried putting water on his mouth again but the droplets won't stay on his mouth because he is quite wet now, they just run off. I've put him right side up again. He is still alive, moves slightly when I disturb him, but not trying to walk any more. I guess now I just leave him and if he doesn't make it he doesn't make it, nothing else I can do

[Kate Arbon]

Well I think it's dead. Just checked again and it hadn't moved at all in 2 hours. Rolled it over again and put more water on its mouth just in case. 4 of its legs are twitching but I don't think it's voluntary, just reacting to being moved.

This sucks. I feel really bad for being careless and it ending up killing a sling. I know it's a lesson to learn but I wish learning lessons in this hobby didn't always end up with a dead spider which is how it always seems to work.

[SylviRigden]

Aww Kate, I think we have all done something like this at some point. I steamed my second sling and won't ever make that mistake again; and my Hubby moved a tank full of juv African Land Snails from a table in a cool room incase the dogs got them ( as if they would be interested! ) and put them in the sun room thereby creating a tank of cooked l'escargo Slings and T's aren't very forgiving when it comes to mistakes. It's a good job animals like dogs and horses are or there would be dead corpses all over the country.

[Kate Arbon]

Yeah I suppose at least if it teaches me to be more careful in future then something good has come of it. I've had spiders go into death curl before and pull out of it when I help them out but I guess the more Ts you get the more times something like this will happen, especially with slings. It's not like I get really upset when a sling dies, but I do feel guilty if it was at all my fault, I just hope they don't suffer too much. I have to admit tho your last sentence gave me a morbid chuckle.

Incidentally I just checked thespidershop.co.uk and I see that the price for these guys has gone up from £5 to.... £500! Think that might be a typo?! Heh.

[matthew spooner]

sorry to hear of your loss kate. still i suppose everyone has to learn lessons one way or another. eithere thats a typo or you have just lost a very valuble spid lol