i went to go to bed the other day and a lil’ spider was hanging out on the wall so i popped him into a catch cup and gave him a meal in exchange for letting me take some pics w my microscope. p sure he’s selenops submaculosus! you can tell bc of crescent eye arrangement. selene = moon ops = eye 🌙 - ThreadSky

mortuaryreport.bsky.social • 2 days ago

i went to go to bed the other day and a lil’ spider was hanging out on the wall so i popped him into a catch cup and gave him a meal in exchange for letting me take some pics w my microscope.

p sure he’s selenops submaculosus! you can tell bc of crescent eye arrangement. selene = moon ops = eye 🌙

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mortuaryreport.bsky.social•2 days ago

i think he’s a mature male because of the size of his pedipalps. when male spiders mature, they emerge from their final molt with physical changes, often including “boxing glove” pedipalps, which are copulatory organs that hold their sperm

ellipsoptera.bsky.social•2 days ago

There was a lot of drama in those subreddits for a while. I stopped checking much!

He could be penultimate--do the pedipalps have anything that looks darker/harder and more complex, or is it fairly uniform, like a mitten?

It looks uniform to me, so that would mean he's one molt away from mature.

mortuaryreport.bsky.social•2 days ago

this fallout happened on discord; mod accused me of rule breaking & dumped me from the server, then retconned story to say i had broken rules 2x (been unkind, given vet advice) it was really disheartening

do these help? does the whole thing go darker? (i keep tarantulas mostly, hard to miss hooks)

mortuaryreport.bsky.social•2 days ago

do they have other changes in their final molt too? thanks for the info!!

ellipsoptera.bsky.social•2 days ago

Visually, just the pedipalps, but great question! Some spiders do have other body changes at the final molt, like more spines or exaggerated jaws or something like tibial hooks. I don't think that's the case with Selenops, but I could be wrong!

Here's a great picture of what the complexity is like

mortuaryreport.bsky.social•2 days ago

ok FASCINATING. so boxing gloves start in the penultimate molt but darken in the final molt? do we know why? (i feel like probably not, anytime i try to ask hyper specific spider q’s there’s just not enough info!)

i inherited a mm avic avic & his tibial hooks were so cool! lasted about 6 mos w me

mortuaryreport.bsky.social•2 days ago

i got into a tiff with the mods of the tarantula and spider subreddits which got me kicked off the discord permanently so i can’t confirm my ID but inaturalist seems to agree so i’m sticking with it. if you know better than me, pls inform me tho!!

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