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Yesterday I took delivery of a delightful L.violaceopes sling of about 4cm.
Having left it at room temp to warm slowly, I took it upstairs for transfer into its enclosure at a stable temp of 27C and an rh of around 80%. Being aware of their speed (and having experience of several Poecilotheria spp) I was ready for a burst of speed. I'd also readied my camera for some shots of the new beastie.
The moistened packaging was gently removed and, with paint brush ready for spidey-coaxing, tilted the pot over the new enclosure.
Woosh! Gone - made a pokey look like a tortoise.
Luckilly the creature had settled along the seam of my camera bag in a lovely pose.
Ignoring all my sense screaming "Get it in the enclosure", I turned around for a split second to get my camera for the shot and.... yup.... Zoom. Gone!
My long-suffering better half took the camera bag down to the bathroom and watched it for any signs of life while I emptied the entire room slowly and methodically. Nothing. Nada. Rien.
To be honest, I wasn't expecting to find it - hundreds of millions of years unchanged, they've evolved not to be found.
Had it been larger, say the 3 - 4" mark it would have been easier - I would be looking up, but at 4cm... Too many nooks and crannies at floor level.
The ambient rh in the room is around the 55% mark so I've set up an Exo Terra viv with deep moist substrate and some lovely dampened bits of cork bark and additional heating to about 28C and reduced the room's ambient temperature to the 20C region in the hope it will find the more comfortable environment before the poor thing dies of dehydration or bad moult.
Had this been a genuine accident I wouldn't be so annoyed, but the entire episode and possible loss of life of the animal is 100% my fault. I have always treated my spiders as fast and hidey things, never allowing room for error. This time a momentary lapse of concentration, just to get a nice shot, may well have cost the life of an animal in my care.
While a valuable lesson has been learned, I'm still gutted.
Hopefully it will turn up.....
Having left it at room temp to warm slowly, I took it upstairs for transfer into its enclosure at a stable temp of 27C and an rh of around 80%. Being aware of their speed (and having experience of several Poecilotheria spp) I was ready for a burst of speed. I'd also readied my camera for some shots of the new beastie.
The moistened packaging was gently removed and, with paint brush ready for spidey-coaxing, tilted the pot over the new enclosure.
Woosh! Gone - made a pokey look like a tortoise.
Luckilly the creature had settled along the seam of my camera bag in a lovely pose.
Ignoring all my sense screaming "Get it in the enclosure", I turned around for a split second to get my camera for the shot and.... yup.... Zoom. Gone!
My long-suffering better half took the camera bag down to the bathroom and watched it for any signs of life while I emptied the entire room slowly and methodically. Nothing. Nada. Rien.
To be honest, I wasn't expecting to find it - hundreds of millions of years unchanged, they've evolved not to be found.
Had it been larger, say the 3 - 4" mark it would have been easier - I would be looking up, but at 4cm... Too many nooks and crannies at floor level.
The ambient rh in the room is around the 55% mark so I've set up an Exo Terra viv with deep moist substrate and some lovely dampened bits of cork bark and additional heating to about 28C and reduced the room's ambient temperature to the 20C region in the hope it will find the more comfortable environment before the poor thing dies of dehydration or bad moult.
Had this been a genuine accident I wouldn't be so annoyed, but the entire episode and possible loss of life of the animal is 100% my fault. I have always treated my spiders as fast and hidey things, never allowing room for error. This time a momentary lapse of concentration, just to get a nice shot, may well have cost the life of an animal in my care.
While a valuable lesson has been learned, I'm still gutted.
Hopefully it will turn up.....
You'll be like me now, always looking up and in the dark corners for the escaped P pulcher sling; and when I'm in the study any movement out the corner of my eye could be the albop sling that did a runner more than a year ago.
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