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Our Sheds/molts
- Thread starter donna
- Start date
- Messages
- 2,364
- Location
- Arizona USA
I love seeing the progression. Unfortunately keeping moults in tact long enough for one of my own is something I've never been good at.
- Messages
- 2,402
- Location
- Essex
They are gorgeous. Your salmon pink Will end up enormous they are pretty tho.
- Messages
- 1,183
Those are AWESOME!! Thank you so much for sharing! Do you have any more?? How do you keep them intact? Do you think you could dedicate a thread to teaching us how to do it too?
- Messages
- 49
- Location
- California, USA
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
these are all we have so far .to be honest its my husband who keeps them , all we do is remove them carefully with tweezers & place them in to pop bottle lids. then we keep them all in a sweet tub, similar to the one we use for our fire leg, on top of our kitchen cupboard where they dont get touched. we havent had a shed form our adult yet as but are expecting one soon, she had shed when she was found,but the lad who foundher kept the skin to show off.can wait for her shed,which hopefully will be whole & we will keep in a cricket tub or a sweet tub.
- Messages
- 48
- Location
- British Columbia, Canada
Wow, I love how you keep them all to show size gains every molt. I tend to throw mine away after I sex them, but not anymore
- Messages
- 2,364
- Location
- Arizona USA
- Messages
- 48
- Location
- British Columbia, Canada
I couldnt look at the link, cuz Im at work and the page wont load.
My method is pretty poor, and I destroy more exuviums than I properly sex, but Ive only been sexing for a couple months now.
What I do is, place the molt in a ziplock bag with a piece of moist paper towel, and leave it for a while. This allows the exuvium to soften up and become more manageable. From there, I put pins through coxae L4 and R4, and slowly start to roll out the opisthosoma. Since the furrow can be almost invisible depending on the size of the T, I just aim for unrolling the entire epigastric plate, and then graze a pin from top to bottom along the lower portion of the plate. A magnifying glass works well, because the flap (dont remember what its really called... furrow?) might be near invisible on smaller molts. However, if the exivum is really small, I will always label the T as either Suspect Male or Suspect Female, until I get the next exuvium to sex again.
Ive heard people have had success sexing small molts by taking pictures and then zooming in on the computer. As well, Ive heard about dishsoap to help spread out the exuvium while reducing tearing, but I havnt tried this myself.
My method is pretty poor, and I destroy more exuviums than I properly sex, but Ive only been sexing for a couple months now.
What I do is, place the molt in a ziplock bag with a piece of moist paper towel, and leave it for a while. This allows the exuvium to soften up and become more manageable. From there, I put pins through coxae L4 and R4, and slowly start to roll out the opisthosoma. Since the furrow can be almost invisible depending on the size of the T, I just aim for unrolling the entire epigastric plate, and then graze a pin from top to bottom along the lower portion of the plate. A magnifying glass works well, because the flap (dont remember what its really called... furrow?) might be near invisible on smaller molts. However, if the exivum is really small, I will always label the T as either Suspect Male or Suspect Female, until I get the next exuvium to sex again.
Ive heard people have had success sexing small molts by taking pictures and then zooming in on the computer. As well, Ive heard about dishsoap to help spread out the exuvium while reducing tearing, but I havnt tried this myself.
