TheGeoChronicles

Following the moult, cuddles' colour has come back vividly and they're doing well as can be seen, with every subsequent moult they look more and more male so from now on they will be refferred to as he unless I can confirm the sex definitively. Today I tried him with a small dubia and watered the enclosure, he didn't show any interest in the roach so I left it in to see if he wanted it later but all in all a successful moult!

Apologies for poor picture quality, this was taken this evening on my phone, this time of year the UK gets dark quite quickly, by about 4 or 5pm.

I had the privilege of seeing cuddles the chaco golden knee perform ecdysis whilst I was on the phone to my boyfriend, I missed the flip but caught her (hopefully her) on her back with her legs twitching before going completely still. This usually alarms novice keepers as the tarantula appears dead, however the T is in fact undergoing a process of inducing a hydraulic pressure change, pushing fluid out of its soft tissue to increase hydraulic pressure within the exoskeleton to cause it to fail along inbuilt lines of weakness and essentially 'pop' the lid of the cephalothorax and exit out. The old exoskeleton (now called exuviae) is discarded and the tarantula now appears slightly wrinkled as it has not completely filled out it's new exoskeleton. Following a period of hardening, which varies by species and size, the tarantula's exoskeleton darkens and it resumes usual activity.

This shows the extent of the infection which was none existent just a few days ago. I will post an update once the predatory mites have been put in the enclosure.

some of the rocks I collected on a fieldtrip to Cyprus earlier this year at the end of my bachelors degree

my new snail A.Candefacta trying to break out of the pot he was shipped in, I guess you could say he was putting his foot down about being shipped through the post! ;)

My juvenile Venezuelan sun tiger (Psalmopoeus irminia) chillin, she (I think) is about 4.5″ diagonal leg span just having a good time patrolling her enclosure. 

You good bro?- Heterometrus spinifer attempting to climb the wall of the enclosure, this is the first time i've observed him being this active, he is not in any discomfort and has plenty of room to move, he just seems to enjoy that wall a whole lot...