Note: This post is about Socks the spider, not socks the things-you-put-on-your-feet. If you came here looking for the latter, I’m sorry to disappoint. Pictures and stuff behind the jump. Don’t click through if you don’t like spiders!
Last weekend, lovely Socks finally moulted. Mr S and I were lucky enough to be able to watch the whole thing; it’s a mind-boggling sort of process. I took quite a few pictures, none of which came out particularly well: Socks’ enclosure isn’t very well-lit (tarantulas are not fond of light, generally) and I didn’t want to disturb her by lifting the lid or using the flash. So most of my photos look like this:
That’s the real Socks on the right, with the old skin and legs on the left. This is quite far along — you can see the orange bits of her legs have started coming out of the moult.
She flipped onto her back around 7-ish in the evening, and started moulting between 10 and 10:15. By about 11 she was completely out of the moult:
And half an hour after that, she was back on her legs:
She looks amazing — post-moult colours really are much brighter. And she is much bigger now, too; I can’t really measure her without disturbing her, but I would say stretched out she’s easily 4.5 inches.
Here she is a couple of days post-moult:
And this is her moult now:
Yesterday I replaced the coconut hide she had with a piece of cork bark, and today she has made a little burrow under it. I’m glad she likes it, but I hope it doesn’t turn into a permanent arrangement!
Oh, and yes — she is definitely a she. When she finally stopped sitting on top of her moult I got to take it out and look for lady bits, and they were very clearly there. Hurrah! She should be with me for a long time!
Bonus pictures:
Mr Satu’s new Chilean rose (Grammostola rosea), Socks’ neighbour, wanting to see what was going on.
Pickle, my Mexican Redleg (Brachypelma emilia).
Puck, my Goliath Pinktoe (Avicularia braunshauseni). Same family as Merlin, but gets a bit bigger. And isn’t blue.
Toffee the Cat does not want her brainz eaten.
Hex the Cat is veeeery sleepy.
