Madness & Molting in May

May has been a mad month for our household full of some major life changes. I'll leave it at that. The point here is that I was very busy and left our babies without much attention for a couple of weeks. Thankfully Elmo fills in the gap there, but he also noticed that several of our babies molted!

Tiny (now double the size he was when we got him!) - Brazilian Whiteknee
Punjab - Indian Ornamental
Jeckyll & Hyde - Brazilian Fire Reds
Tweedle Dee (not Dum yet) - Chaco Golden Knee

Sorry I don't have any photos at this point. I've just been too busy to do much photography.

Punjab Molting this Morning!

I caught Punjab molting this morning! Not my best photography, but...

Punjab Molting
He was done soon after.

I'll try to get a clear shot of his more pronounced markings soon.

Punjab in New Home

Saturday night, I got our friend Brandon to wiggle a mini meal worm through the holes at the top! It was pretty funny. Shortly thereafter, we were trying to figure out where the worm went. Then Punjab came down from the top as if to show us that he had things well in hand. lol

Punjab
Indian Ornamental
Poecilotheria regalis

Sunday afternoon, I found this...

Punjab
Indian Ornamental
Poecilotheria regalis

This had us cracking up!

Rehousing Punjab

I recently readied 2 spice bottles as houses for tree-dwelling (arboreal) tarantulas. My plan was to move Punjab (Indian Ornamental / Poecilotheria regalis) as well as Tanzania (Ornamental Baboon / Heteroscodra maculata). I got a little substrate (dirt) in the bottom and then curled up some fake vine into the bottle. They look beautiful! We decided, though, that Tanzania isn't quite big enough yet. We don't want anyone escaping through the holes!

So I've been waiting (and waiting and waiting) for Punjab to be on the lid of his cage. My plan was to remove the lid and place it over the spice bottle. In the middle of cooking breakfast this morning, Elmo brought Punjab into the kitchen. I opened the spice bottle and carefully removed the lid from the current dish. I was having trouble getting the spider off the lid, though. I tried edging him with my spider paint brush. NOTE: I did not refrigerate the spider before this attempt. He is really fast. This species is known for its lightning speed. And too small to grab without fear of harming him.

Can you guess what happened next?

Moving / Feeding Day - Indian Ornamental

This is was our Indian Ornamental's habitat:

Poecilotheria regalis
Icky Habitat

It looks gross. You can see a couple of mold spots, plus it looks like there might be some mold in the lid, an old meal worm carcass, and there is an old skin. It definitely needed cleaning or something! I am loving the new dishes I got, so I prepped one for this lil guy, even though they aren't much larger.