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Meet Rosanna, a lovely CHILE ROSE TARANTULA from (believe it or not!) Chile in south
America. The 'rose' part of the name comes from the pretty pink colouring
on the top part of her body. She loves to eat crickets and other insects
but sometimes will choose to go without any food at all for weeks and weeks!
Tarantulas have to
routinely moult, which is the process of renewing
their exoskeleton (their outer body or skin) and
casting off or shedding their old exoskeleton.
It is a remarkable process particularly because they
somehow manage to leave their old exoskeleton in one
piece during the process, making it look a lot like
a real living tarantula! In June 2008 I was
fortunate enough to witness another of my female
Chile rose tarantulas actually moulting, and was
able to take a series of photographs of the event as
seen below:
Tarantulas start the actual
process by producing and laying down a 'bed' of silk
and then lying on their back, the silk protecting
their delicate abdomen during the moulting process:
The actual process of
moulting is a very demanding one for a tarantula and
it takes a huge amount of energy to complete
successfully. If they are disturbed in any way
during the process they can be severely stressed and
fail to moult successfully, or even die. For
this reason, and as soon as I saw that she was lying
on her back and therefore preparing to moult, I
opened the lid of her enclosure and left it open and
in one place during the whole process. This
meant that each time I revisited her to see how she
was doing I would not need to disturb her at all.
I did not sit and watch the entire process as I knew
from experience that it could take several hours
from start to finish, and instead just checked in on
her very regularly during the four or so hours that
it did eventually take!
The picture above shows the
first visible sign of the moulting process, which is
the tarantula's legs starting to be squeezed out of
the old exoskeleton. Fluid pressure inside the
tarantula's body is used to pop off the carapace
(which is like the tarantula's head) and then the
same pressure is used to squeeze the legs out of the
hole where the carapace or head used to be!
The legs are moving almost constantly during this
part of the process as the fluid is being pumped
through them. The picture below shows this
part of the process a bit more closely, with those
shiny bluish coloured (and hairy) things being the
tarantula's 'new' legs emerging from inside those of
the old exoskeleton or skin!
Half an hour or so later
she had pushed her legs out a little further, and
here you can clearly see that she is lying on her
back and pushing the old exoskeleton off over the
top of her new one!
Another hour or so later
she had nearly completely pulled her legs free from
the old exoskeleton as you can see below!
Finally, once the
tarantula's new body is completely free from the old
one, it will remain on its back for some time to
rest following all the exertion required to moult.
Her new body is very soft and will take some time to
fully harden up again, in fact it can be as many as
7-10 days before the new exoskeleton of a large
tarantula is fully hardened. During this time
the tarantula is unable to feed as its fangs are
soft and rubbery, as shown by their white colour in
the picture below, which is very different to the
normal black colour of the hard fangs of the 'old'
exoskeleton!
It was a
great privilege to witness this most amazing of
natural processes and, even having actually watched
it on this occasion, it never fails to amaze me how
on earth a tarantula can get out of its old
exoskeleton without damaging it at all, and leaving
it in entirely one piece! They truly are a
wonder of nature, I hope you agree! When
Rosanna herself moulted she produced an even thicker
'blanket' of silk to lie on, and when she had
finished she looked absolutely beautiful as you can
see below!
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