P.Regalis hardly moving

[matt_richardson]

Afternoon all,

I woke up this morning to find that my mature female P.Regalis was on the bottom of the exo terra enclosure and is hardly moving at all. It doesn't appear to be in a death curl but is very sluggish and reluctant to move much when gently touched.

I've only had her for a few months since purchasing from the BTS show. I don't know what to do... her behaviour seems really odd as she's always been lightning fast and never even touched the surface. can anyone help?

P.S. there's plenty of water and ventilation in the tank. I also have a heat mat on the side.

Any help or advice would be greatly appreciated! Thanks.

Matt

[Nicolas Charrière]

Hello Matt.

As far as I can tell, it could be at least three different things:

- First, she may be preparing a molt. It happens for Poecilotheria spp. to molt not laying in a web inside the cork bark, but on the bottom of the terra. Is your terrarium high enough (40 cm high, with a standing round cork bark for instance)? If she's preparing a molt, you don't have to worry: she moves slower because the new exoskeleton is building under the old one.

- Maybe your terrarium is too hot, and then she may be suffering from the warmth. Here in Switzerland, the weather is now very hot: no need of a heat mat at all! Even in winter I never use one. Too much heat might kill a tarantula faster than too much cold. If your temps are between 19°C and 28°C, no problems. Maybe you should use the heat mat for other animals like snakes.

- Maybe it's too moist: hard to tell because I don't know what you mean with "plenty of water". Good ventilations is perfect, arboreal tarantulas need that, but the substrate shouldn't be damp. A water dish and pouring a little water once a week (letting that dry out) is enough in my opinion. I kept once a Poecilotheria metallica (around 4 cm BL) who died with no apparent reason, and I'm almost sure it was because I kept here in too moist conditions. Maybe it's something to check?

That's what I'm thinking about. If it's possible for you, you can send a picture of the enclosure and of the spider. It could help to see if something else is causing problems. But it also happens that some tarantula die for no understandable reasons in our limited knowledge...

[matt_richardson]

Hi Nicolas,

Thank you for getting back to me with your advice. Unfortunately when I got back home from work I found her dead in the corner of the cage I took her out and inspected her but couldnt find anything to suggest the cause of death. Maybe she was old when I bought her? Who knows .

Either way, thank you for your advice. As a precaution I'm going to separate her tank from the other Ts and clean it out before finding a replacement T.

Kind regards,

Matt

[Nicolas Charrière]

Well, I'm sorry for your loss.

It could definitely be a question of old age. Poecilotheria don't live as long as Brachypelma for instance. And if you got her as an adult, it's hard to say how old she was.

But in my experience, it's possible to notice when a tarantula is old and approaching death for more than a couple of days. What happened to your T was rather fast, wasn't it? Anyway, sometimes it's very hard to know.

You're sure it wasn't a mature male? Never caught her "drumming" at night? And walking restless in the enclosure? Because male Poecilotheria don't have tibial hooks, we sometimes don't notice they're male.

All the best for you and your Ts!