Tarantula mouth covered in mites

[MBullock]

She died
View attachment 67359

Seems related to her abdomen.

 

[MBullock]

Keep the corpse and observe it. you may see a large pupa emerge.

if this happens the true culprit was a small-headed fly.
ornithoctoninae are absolutely plagued by these guys. I remember a friend of mine having a really big one emerge from a tarantula that seemed just fine before it matured and then the larva killed it.

 

[x_raphael_xx]

Seems related to her abdomen.

I wondered if she was compacted. But she did poop. I'll never know.

 

[MBullock]

I wondered if she was compacted. But she did poop. I'll never know.

small-headed flies will lodge themselves into a book lung and wait there dormant for several years before beginning to consume the host. the symptom is often swelling around the book lungs- the larva eats nonvital parts first, then finally goes for the nervous system and completes the life cycle.


last year we caught a whole bunch of olios giganteus from tucson and they almost all had small-headed flies in them. even the widows we got all had them, too.

the only spiders i caught that day that DIDNT have em were just two olios and a couple of hogna, minus the tarantulas

 

[x_raphael_xx]

small-headed flies will lodge themselves into a book lung and wait there dormant for several years before beginning to consume the host. the symptom is often swelling around the book lungs- the larva eats nonvital parts first, then finally goes for the nervous system and completes the life cycle.


last year we caught a whole bunch of olios giganteus from tucson and they almost all had small-headed flies in them. even the widows we got all had them, too.

the only spiders i caught that day that DIDNT have em were just two olios and a couple of hogna, minus the tarantulas

I've never heard or seen such flies here in the UK.

 

[MBullock]

I've never heard or seen such flies here in the UK.

they're obscure and poorly known by the public. Most times you get it from a wild-caught spider from a hot humid region. In the USA sometimes you'll get an aphono carrying one, the species in the USA that attack aphonopelma tend to be pretty huge, large like a horse-fly almost