Jumping Spider Acting Weird

[Sab113]

Hi guys,

My male sub adult Phidippus regius has acted very strange since he came home about a month ago.

When he first arrived, he was inactive but alert. He has shown no interest in a variety of live and pre killed food.

For the last couple of weeks, he as found it very hard to grip and has had 3 falls that we have seen. We initially thought this was due to nearing a moult, but his behaviour is also strange in another way.

I'm hoping the video will attach (apologies for the shaky cam), but basically his legs flail around erratically and he thrashes about, sometimes flipping on to his back. Its not related to us being close as we can see him doing it from a distance. He is spending most of the time on the floor now. His movements can be more erratic than this but this is the only video I have of it.

The temperature and humidity are correct, and everything in his enclosure is spider-safe.

The one thing that concerns me is the female he came in the post at the same time passed away in a mismoult two weeks ago despite our best efforts to save her. All of our other jumping spiders and tarantulas are perfectly healthy and thriving, but these two that arrived together have had issues.

My initial thought was dyskinetic syndrome, maybe exposure for both of them to something toxic in transit? (No risk of that here as we have parrots so have to be very careful to avoid chemicals).

If anyone has any advice I'd appreciate it. I don't know if I should rehouse him into something smaller or if the stress would make things worse!

View attachment IMG_8022.mp4

 

[puffins]

I’ve yet to see dyskinetic syndrome in jumpers myself, but this does look similar to how a tarantula might suffer from it. The falling down a lot and failure to grip would probably be due to this lack of coordination.
If it were me, I’d probably give him a smaller enclosure so that he doesn’t hurt himself when he falls and wait it out and see if he makes it. If he gets really skinny and still doesn’t accept food, you might try and hand feed a cut open prey item and put the guts up to its mouth to see if it will eat.
Hoping he pulls through for you. Sounds like if the other spider in the shipment also had troubles, it could have been the vendor. I don’t know how common contamination during shipment is. Best of luck for your beautiful little guy let us know how it turns out.

 

[Sab113]

I’ve yet to see dyskinetic syndrome in jumpers myself, but this does look similar to how a tarantula might suffer from it. The falling down a lot and failure to grip would probably be due to this lack of coordination.
If it were me, I’d probably give him a smaller enclosure so that he doesn’t hurt himself when he falls and wait it out and see if he makes it. If he gets really skinny and still doesn’t accept food, you might try and hand feed a cut open prey item and put the guts up to its mouth to see if it will eat.
Hoping he pulls through for you. Sounds like if the other spider in the shipment also had troubles, it could have been the vendor. I don’t know how common contamination during shipment is. Best of luck for your beautiful little guy let us know how it turns out.

Thank you, I am thinking of the rehouse. He isn't super skinny right now but that's obviously a concern as well for us!

All of our jumpers are from the same breeder, and we received another one from them about a week ago who is doing really well - healthy, eating, webbing, curious etc. So I don't think it's an issue with them!

 

[goofyGoober99]

This seems really similar to what's going on with my phiddipus audax sling. The difficulty climbing, falling, flailing, and not eating.
This is my thread describing the issue:

Very concerned for Phiddipus Audax

So I got my P audax, Marceline, around 4 months ago. She (not sexed but I call all my spiders she before I can tell lol) was around i3 (I know now that that's kinda young to ship). Always had a bit of trouble hunting but has kind of taken a turn for the worst recently. She molted fine twice with...

arachnoboards.com

(Sorry mods if this is the wrong way to link to another thread)

Still have no idea what caused the strange behaviour but with recommendations from the user Charliemum, she is definitely doing better.
I moved her to a 3x3x3 inch enclosure with better ventilation and only substrate and a small piece of cork bark. I mist around 2-3 times a day (the heating in my house makes it pretty dry) and keep the sub damp so she has plenty of opportunities to drink and the humidity stays good. Every second day I've offered pre killed prey. I've tried to offer as many different types of prey as possible (fruit flies, mealworms, crickets). Chopped up mealworm bits seem to be the most successful so far. I've offered honey water on a qtip once or twice a week as well. Definitely throwing everything at the wall and seeing what sticks tbh.
She hasn't fully recovered but she's much less shakey, rarely seems to fall or flip over, and has finally built a hammock in the past few days.

I really hope you can figure out what's going on and get him feeling better

 

[Sab113]

This seems really similar to what's going on with my phiddipus audax sling. The difficulty climbing, falling, flailing, and not eating.
This is my thread describing the issue:

Very concerned for Phiddipus Audax

So I got my P audax, Marceline, around 4 months ago. She (not sexed but I call all my spiders she before I can tell lol) was around i3 (I know now that that's kinda young to ship). Always had a bit of trouble hunting but has kind of taken a turn for the worst recently. She molted fine twice with...

arachnoboards.com

(Sorry mods if this is the wrong way to link to another thread)

Still have no idea what caused the strange behaviour but with recommendations from the user Charliemum, she is definitely doing better.
I moved her to a 3x3x3 inch enclosure with better ventilation and only substrate and a small piece of cork bark. I mist around 2-3 times a day (the heating in my house makes it pretty dry) and keep the sub damp so she has plenty of opportunities to drink and the humidity stays good. Every second day I've offered pre killed prey. I've tried to offer as many different types of prey as possible (fruit flies, mealworms, crickets). Chopped up mealworm bits seem to be the most successful so far. I've offered honey water on a qtip once or twice a week as well. Definitely throwing everything at the wall and seeing what sticks tbh.
She hasn't fully recovered but she's much less shakey, rarely seems to fall or flip over, and has finally built a hammock in the past few days.

I really hope you can figure out what's going on and get him feeling better

Thanks for your input! I hope your little one continues to improve! I'm going to see what we have spare in terms of enclosures (expecting some more in the post shortly too) so will look to move him over-even that gives me anxiety as I don't want him to be stressed out by the move!

 

[Ultum4Spiderz]

I’ve yet to see dyskinetic syndrome in jumpers myself, but this does look similar to how a tarantula might suffer from it. The falling down a lot and failure to grip would probably be due to this lack of coordination.
If it were me, I’d probably give him a smaller enclosure so that he doesn’t hurt himself when he falls and wait it out and see if he makes it. If he gets really skinny and still doesn’t accept food, you might try and hand feed a cut open prey item and put the guts up to its mouth to see if it will eat.
Hoping he pulls through for you. Sounds like if the other spider in the shipment also had troubles, it could have been the vendor. I don’t know how common contamination during shipment is. Best of luck for your beautiful little guy let us know how it turns out.

dyskinetic syndrome yes your correct and it’s odds of survival are low.

 

[Sab113]

We've rehoused him into a smaller tub with high humidity and warmth. He has a small bit of cork propped up diagonally and a good depth of substrate. I offered a pre killed mealworm and he grabbed onto it immediately, but I'm not sure if that was because he was confused with what was going on. He sat with the mealworm goo at his mouth for about an hour but I didn't see his mouth move at all. He's now sat on the cork bark and gripping okay so it'll be a waiting game I guess.

 

[goofyGoober99]

Great! Happy to hear the rehouse was a success. He might not have eaten the mealworm but I feel like him grabbing it is at least a good sign of a prey drive? Baby steps ya know. Good that he's able to grip better on the cork bark. That'll definitely make him more comfortable.

 

[Sab113]

Update: Sadly our little one passed away overnight despite our best efforts to save him.

All of our other jumping spiders are completely fine.

Goodnight little Mars, I'm sorry we couldn't save you.

 

[CRX]

DKS is almost always fatal. I lost my entire first collection to it. $500 of Ts. No one knows for sure what causes it, the most likely is some kind of poisoning.