Last night at just after 10pm, Cyan, our gorgeous little Chromatopelma cyaneopubescens sling, moulted into a perfect, healthy little L4 tarantula. 
We knew it was going to happen this weekend, she'd been going mental since Friday evening, laying down copious amounts of webbing around the outside of her hide, and kicking showers of hairs all over the place.
She'd spent the last week preparing herself and her surroundings, including the usual webbing up of her hide, where she has on her previous moults, hidden herself away to complete the moulting process.
So it was to my absolute surprise and delight, that on this occasion, she decided to moult out in the open, right in front of us, and our trusty Canon Powershot 480 was on hand to capture the event in 1cm macro detail.
Some of the images are not great quality, due to the mixture of it being night time, using artificial lighting (but having to be careful not to use too much and stress her), glare, movement of the 'subject', and the lack of a tripod to support the camera.
Though I wouldn't normally, I've still included some of the more grainy and poorer quality images on this occasion, as I wanted to capture for you a snap-shot of the entire event.
I took well over 100 images during this shoot, but bring you the "ruthless edit", which takes the number down to 40 of the better ones. Even then, it was still so hard to decide which ones to leave out.
The way she moulted too, was surprising, fascinating, and totally cool!
She made herself a 'web hammock', almost like a circus safety net, and instead of just moulting normally on her back, she suspended herself upside down from a leaf over her 'hammock', and when she was ready, just kind of 'slid' right out of her old exo, into the 'safety net' waiting to support her as she fell. It was very awesome.
Anyway, enough waffling, time for the action:
Last steps at L3, as she approaches her moulting position...
Cyan is not an "upside down" spider. Some spiders like to hang upside down sometimes, but not her; so when we saw this, we knew that the time had come...
She hung there from 10pm until about 25 past, when the moult began.
I presumed that she was going to ease herself down into her moulting mat onto her back when she was ready; but she had something else in mind...
and in no more than 15 minutes, she had all but slid out from her old exo, supported by her safety net, with just her feet left to come out. (ahhh, look at that lovely blue!)...
She took another 10-15 minutes, just laying on her back and catching her breath, and then with a few little kicks, she was free of her old straight jacket...
then she spent some time flexing her new legs, and giving us some nice white fang shots...
happy that everything was working as it should, it was time to test out her new exo by putting some weight on her legs...
and very pretty legs they are too...
the next image isn't good quality, but I put it in so you can see what I mean by the 'safety net' or 'hammock' that she made herself to 'drop' into...
by this time, I think she was fed up with my prying lense, and turned to move deeper into her tunnel...
couple of close ups of the iridescent blue now adorning the tops of her legs...
and two cute face shots, as she settles down to wash and preen her fresh new legs...
and finally, two from this morning, when she came out for a stretch. Unfortunately very bad sunlight glare makes the images not too great, but does show off her new colours nicely...
That's all guys, hope you enjoyed the moulting show.
We knew it was going to happen this weekend, she'd been going mental since Friday evening, laying down copious amounts of webbing around the outside of her hide, and kicking showers of hairs all over the place.
She'd spent the last week preparing herself and her surroundings, including the usual webbing up of her hide, where she has on her previous moults, hidden herself away to complete the moulting process.
So it was to my absolute surprise and delight, that on this occasion, she decided to moult out in the open, right in front of us, and our trusty Canon Powershot 480 was on hand to capture the event in 1cm macro detail.
Some of the images are not great quality, due to the mixture of it being night time, using artificial lighting (but having to be careful not to use too much and stress her), glare, movement of the 'subject', and the lack of a tripod to support the camera.
Though I wouldn't normally, I've still included some of the more grainy and poorer quality images on this occasion, as I wanted to capture for you a snap-shot of the entire event.
I took well over 100 images during this shoot, but bring you the "ruthless edit", which takes the number down to 40 of the better ones. Even then, it was still so hard to decide which ones to leave out.
The way she moulted too, was surprising, fascinating, and totally cool!
She made herself a 'web hammock', almost like a circus safety net, and instead of just moulting normally on her back, she suspended herself upside down from a leaf over her 'hammock', and when she was ready, just kind of 'slid' right out of her old exo, into the 'safety net' waiting to support her as she fell. It was very awesome.
Anyway, enough waffling, time for the action:
Last steps at L3, as she approaches her moulting position...
Cyan is not an "upside down" spider. Some spiders like to hang upside down sometimes, but not her; so when we saw this, we knew that the time had come...
She hung there from 10pm until about 25 past, when the moult began.
I presumed that she was going to ease herself down into her moulting mat onto her back when she was ready; but she had something else in mind...
and in no more than 15 minutes, she had all but slid out from her old exo, supported by her safety net, with just her feet left to come out. (ahhh, look at that lovely blue!)...
She took another 10-15 minutes, just laying on her back and catching her breath, and then with a few little kicks, she was free of her old straight jacket...
then she spent some time flexing her new legs, and giving us some nice white fang shots...
happy that everything was working as it should, it was time to test out her new exo by putting some weight on her legs...
and very pretty legs they are too...
the next image isn't good quality, but I put it in so you can see what I mean by the 'safety net' or 'hammock' that she made herself to 'drop' into...
by this time, I think she was fed up with my prying lense, and turned to move deeper into her tunnel...
couple of close ups of the iridescent blue now adorning the tops of her legs...
and two cute face shots, as she settles down to wash and preen her fresh new legs...
and finally, two from this morning, when she came out for a stretch. Unfortunately very bad sunlight glare makes the images not too great, but does show off her new colours nicely...
That's all guys, hope you enjoyed the moulting show.
Last edited:
