tragic night

[michael martus]

Hello again everyone. If you have read my last post, is was trying to nurse a dehydrated Haplopelma sling. As i went to her cage for a scheduled misting i discovered her lying in the middle of her cage in a death curl . With futher examination i discovered that her entire carapase has been completly dryrd out as if all internal fluid has been draind. The abdomin is completly fine, as well as the fangs, only the carapase is deformed. Needless to say she is dead, and if anyone knows why a T's. carapase would be like that, any insight on this strange tagidy would be most aperciated. Thanks again for all your help.
-Mike-

[Grant Miller]

I wont go right into depth with my explaination however I will tender this basic possability as to what has occured . T`s have the ability to close off the abdominal section from the cephalothorax/prosoma section by way of a sphincter muscle located within the pedicel . Once your T has realised it was losing precious fluid its possible that your T has closed off the sphincter muscle in order to contain precious blood around its internal organs in a bid for self preservation and thats why the carapace now appears dried out yet the abdomen remains normal , the cephalothorax/prosoma now cut off from all fluid supplies has simply continued to dry out unabated , of course once all fluid drained from the cephalothorax/prosoma the internal organs contained within this section ie- the ganglion (T`s basic brain) would have withered and died anyway so your T`s efforts of self preservation , try as it might were in vain . If caught earlier you could have given the T a direct injection of distilled water through the trochanter/coxa joint of leg4 to instantly boost its blood pressure levels allowing it to get itself a drink .
sorry for your loss .

[michael martus]

Thank you.

Thank you for your resourceful information on why such a bizar thing would happend. I never would have began to imagine what extensive procedures/ recovery were necessary for healing such a diagnosis. Is there any particular reason why a tarantula would be prone to do that?

Thanks -Mike-

[Grant Miller]

once her blood pressure had dropped to the point where she could no longer walk to a water source she would have made the decission to shut down all unnecessary body functions in order to try to save herself . Her cephalothorax / prosoma would appear the way it does cause of the lack of fluid internally , in a normal living T the cephalothorax / prosoma looks pumped up due to internal sacs called "lateral sacs" being filled with blood (hemolymph) , once those sacs empty of fluid you get that deflated appearance .
I wouldn`t say this sp. is "prone" to doing this , its just something she has done in order to try to survive and I would also tender to you that perhaps her fluid loss was very swift and maybe she had very little time / energy left to respond to such a threat , hence the drastic outcome .

I`m in no way saying this is without a doubt what happened to your T mate but I`m simply giving food to the thought process .

[michael martus]

Wow thank you very much. As i said before, i would have never have guessed that a tarantula could do such a thing like that. This definetly does shine some light on to what has happend though. Thanks again .