Nekonekosupermonkeypig-chan

Hello folks. What we have here is a very crappy website on which I will be displaying pictures of my Chillean rose hair tarantula. Because I don't want to take time to learn how to design a website, or even bother to get a program that would do all the hard work for me, I'm pretty much just slapping a bunch of thumbnails down on this page. Click on them to see the full-sized image.

Enjoying the first cricket I fed her

New Pictures

Getting ready for dinner.

Why hello little cricket, all covered in calcium powder

Queue Jaws music

No, don't go in there!

Damn she's fast.

So very tasty.

Now we're just kinda... disolving our dinner

You can't see it, but there's a little cricket carcass in her fangs

I really just have a lot of time on my hands so I hang out and take pictures of spiders.

Here we go, yummy cricket

Story Time I'm going to go on a bit about my spider, so if it's boring, just skip to the pictures My tarantula was given to me as a birthday present in February of 2005. She was presented to me in a little critter keeper terrarium with a bowl for water and that's it. I was thrilled, but soon also highly annoyed. I'd been wanting a tarantula for a long time, but hadn't taken the step to purchase one because I really didn't know how to care for one (and partly because I didn't really want to keep one when I had room mates who might not appreciate her). I didn't like the critter keeper, so I went out and bought a ten gallon aquarium. I also needed more substrate, something for her to hide under, a book about tarantulas, etc. So my present ended up costing a fair amount of money. Word to the wise: don't buy pets as presents. It's irresponsible and generally costs your friend a lot of money. I immediately knew what her name was going to be. The night before, my brother and I had been talking about City of Heroes. I said I wanted a superhero named something like monkey pig. And then I kept adding words, until I had Nekonekosupermonkeypig-chan. Which is waaaay too long for a CoH toon. But perfect for my tarantula. Some people just call her "Kitty" for short.

We still use the critter keeper as temporary housing when it's time to clean her terrarium. She doesn't like it.

Her current abode.

Next to my hand for size comparison

Now we'll just observe how pretty she is.

She's all huddled up and mad at me.

A different angle!

I just cleaned her terrarium and she's pissed.

For some reason, she climbs the walls when she's mad.

Molting I only had my spider for about a month before she molted for the first time! This was a terrifying time since I had done a lot of reading on molting and it seemed like a million things could go wrong. One morning I woke up and she was flipped over on her back (they have to be on their back to molt). I almost called in sick to work because I wanted to stay at home and watch her. But I went to work, and when I came home, she hadn't finished molting. She ended up molting with no problems and I got a neat series of pictures.

Here she is on her back. I felt like I was having a heart attack when I saw her. It took me a moment to remember this was a normal part of molting.

The carapace splits down her back and she pushes her way out.

We're pretty much just going to look at this from different angles

This took hours to finish

Squeeze!

And she's done! She's hanging out next to her old carapace

Here's her carapace after I took it out. I still have it

This year, Nekonekosupermonkeypig-chan molted in September. I'm not sure why it took so long. She stopped eating almost a month before, and she turned very black (which is normal before molting) but she took forever to actually molt. The second molt was harder on her and I was really worried about her, but I found out that motling tends to get harder as they get older. It's nothing to be concerned about. This time, I saw her on her back in the morning, and by the time I got home she was out. Her molt isn't stretched out as nicely as last years. Last year's and this year's molt Here's the first molt again, I pulled the abdomen part open so I could see the internal organs. This is why I was looking at her organs. I didn't actually know if she was male or female until recently, when I found some folks online who could sex her by looking at this area here. I believe the spots I have pointed out are the spermathecae which are little folds that hold sperm. Threat Displays I'd been seeing all these pictures of tarantulas making threat displays, where they rear up and show of their fangs. I was sad because my rosie had never done it. Then, just a couple of days ago, she did a threat display when I fed her! And now she does it all the time. True Spiders I've always loved spiders, which is why I wanted a tarantula in the first place. But having one hasn't made me any less interested in other spiders. I've recently started a project where I'm going to go out, collect a spider to photograph and observe for a few days, and try to identify it. Hopefully, I'll come up with some interesting finds. Araneus cavaticus - Barn Spider At least, I think this is an A. cavaticus. Originally, I thought it was a European garden spider (an actual example of which can be found below). But after checking out the pictures on bugguide.net I decided that can't be right. My Grandfather found this spider in Spokane while I was visiting and my brother took the pictures. I thought she was beautiful, but my sister said I couldn't bring her home because we were riding in her car. This is an orb-weaving spider and is harmless to humans. I call it a her, but I don't have a very good look at its pedipalps, so I'm not really certain of that (I didn't know how to sex spiders at the time we found her). Apparently, the spider from Charlotte's Web was supposed to be a barn spider. Araneus diadematus - European Garden Spider I was so delighted when I found this A. diadematus. I had just learned about them from misidentifying the A cavaticus and it was nice to be able to recognize this spider right off the bat. This one I found after work, on my way to Tae Kwon Do class. She's so beautiful. And she's almost exactly the same as the spider that I used when I redesigned the AD&D monster, the Aranea. Harvestmen (Opiliones) It's so weird what you'll start to notice when you start learning about something new. I was reading about the spider we call daddy long-legs around here (Pholcidae) and found out there was another kind of arachnid which are often called the same thing. But I had never noticed these critters before. Turned out I was wrong. I had noticed one just a few days ago in my sink. But I hadn't looked very closely at it before putting it somewhere safe. Then today, I started my new past time of spider hunting, and the first critter I found was another one of these. I was pleased because the last one I saw was too small for me to get a good picture of. This guy was all squished up in a little hole in some concrete with at least one other harvestman. he came running right out and into my "collection box" (a ziplock container). He wouldn't sit still for a picture for a long time, either. When I put him in his temporary home (a jar with coconut fiber, a fake plant, and a rock) he immediately hid under the rock. I definately won't keep him for long, because I'm uncertain about feeding him. Apparently, these guys can be omniverous, but different kinds eat different things, and I can't figure out exactly what species he is (nor can I find any kind of caresheets for harvestmen). Useful Links Tarantula Forum The guys here really helped me out when I was worried about Nekonekosupermonkeypig-chan's second molt and identified my grandpa's spider. BugGuide.Net has a lot of pictures of anthropods and can be very handy for identifying spiders (though time consuming. There's over 200 pages of pictures of arachnids to go through). Anatomy of a spider Well, I think it's useful, at least. Spiderz rule Lots of pictures Big Hairy Spiders Lots more pictures Deviant Art site Where I sometimes have drawings of spiders. I didn't really make this site for anybody but friends. If you have comments and you don't know my e-mail, come find me over at the tarantula forum. My username is carp.