Watch my female L. parahybana get a new suit…in fast motion.
As I stated in an earlier post, I’ve had tarantulas molting constantly lately. The warmer weather has definitely sped up those metabolisms, and even my slower-growing species have joined in on the molting fun. It’s been amazing to discover a different T molting about every other day.
When I noticed that my female L. parahybana had turned over on her back for a molt, I decided to try to catch in on video. Having just purchased a new GoPro Hero Black video camera capable of time lapse photography, I scrambled to come up with some type of set up that would allow me to safely record the event without endangering my T. 15 minutes and quite a bit of profanity later, I had it all set up and ready to go.
The molt took approximately 4 hours from her flipping over to the molted exoskeleton being completely free. I set the interval at 60 seconds, which worked, but I will probably use 30 seconds on the next go round. This is the first time I’ve seen one of my tarantulas molt in entirety, and I’m floored.
My 11-year old, who was disappointed he was going to miss the molt due to being away for the week, is going to flip when he sees this…
Tom's Big Spiders 
That’s totally awesome! How often do they do that?
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Thank you! I’m glad that the recording actually worked, as I had no idea what I was doing. 🙂
As for how often, it depends on a few factors. Some species have faster growth rates than others. Also, now that it’s summer and much warmer, my tarantulas’ metabolisms have sped up and they are eating much more. This means faster growth, and to grow, they have to molt. Some of my spiderlings molt every two months like clockwork. Others, it’s every four to six months. When they approach adulthood, it’s usually once a year or so. This particular species has a faster growth rate; she’s been molting every 3 months or so. Sorry for the long-winded reply!
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No worries, that’s really interesting
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