Hello everyone,
I recently made a bit of a silly purchase from a no-longer-local reptile house (I moved away two days after the purchase): a mature male S. Javanensis, only I didn't discover it was mature until it fully showed itself the other day. A pretty daft oversight on my part. Anyway. After investigating it more closely I found these strange white dots around the chelicerae:
My initial thought was mites, but I've been monitoring the spider closely since I found them and the dots are neither moving or multiplying, and I don't see any on the substrate or in the water dish. I've asked around on another forum I use and the more experienced users there don't seem to think it's mites, but they don't know what else it could be either (or so I gathered). Does anyone on here have any idea what they could be, and/or where they could have come from? I've ruled out my crickets as I've had this batch longer than I've had the Javanensis, and none of my other spiders have the condition.
Whatever these little dots are they don't seem to be distressing the spider, and he's still eating, so I'm guessing it can't be anything immediately life-threatening. My main concern is whether or not anyone will let him near their female with whatever it is he has on him - I'd hate to see him expire without doing what he was born to do. I haven't advertised him yet as I cannot identify what exactly he has!
Anyway, thanks in advance for any help,
Tom.
I recently made a bit of a silly purchase from a no-longer-local reptile house (I moved away two days after the purchase): a mature male S. Javanensis, only I didn't discover it was mature until it fully showed itself the other day. A pretty daft oversight on my part. Anyway. After investigating it more closely I found these strange white dots around the chelicerae:
My initial thought was mites, but I've been monitoring the spider closely since I found them and the dots are neither moving or multiplying, and I don't see any on the substrate or in the water dish. I've asked around on another forum I use and the more experienced users there don't seem to think it's mites, but they don't know what else it could be either (or so I gathered). Does anyone on here have any idea what they could be, and/or where they could have come from? I've ruled out my crickets as I've had this batch longer than I've had the Javanensis, and none of my other spiders have the condition.
Whatever these little dots are they don't seem to be distressing the spider, and he's still eating, so I'm guessing it can't be anything immediately life-threatening. My main concern is whether or not anyone will let him near their female with whatever it is he has on him - I'd hate to see him expire without doing what he was born to do. I haven't advertised him yet as I cannot identify what exactly he has!
Anyway, thanks in advance for any help,
Tom.
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