Woke Up To THIS!!!

Greetings Everyone,
This morning I woke up and headed upstairs to give our hissing and Dubai cockroaches some orange slices (yummy!) and found a few surprises.  The first surprise was my Mexican Red Knee Tarantula flipped over and coming out of her old exoskeleton.  It is very difficult to catch a tarantula as they molt as it's usually in the middle of the night.  She was almost done and I was able to snap a few pictures and even get a quick video clip which I hope upload soon.  Enjoy the pics below:

This was how I first found her - she is on the left, the exoskeleton is on the right.  She was just finishing pulling her legs out of the old "skin." 

Here you can see the opening of the old exoskeleton as she gets the last few feet out.

Here she is stretching out each leg - the white parts between the segments of the leg will get dark as they harden, but this is how she gets bigger after molting.  Also, see the opening on the carapace of the old exoskeleton - there are holes for each leg and the fangs. 

After stretching the legs out, she then brings them all in just do repeat the process a few times. 

Here she has flipped over and is now resting for the next few days. Her fangs are white after molting but will harden in a day or two and then she will be hungry...very, very hungry.

As I mention in my shows - it's always a treat to get the old exoskeleton out in one piece because you can have a LOT of fun with it - it looks just like a real tarantula at first glance! 

Besides the tarantula molting, I was also quite delighted to see that one of the devil scorpions that me and the kiddos found out in the woods is now a proud mom!!!  In the picture below, you can just make her out with lots of little white babies piled up on her back - she was also still giving birth so there will hopefully be even more than what is pictured!  Now I just hope she doesn't do what our other scorpions did and eat all the babies.  Fingers crossed!

She is hard to find as she blends right in to her surroundings - look at the sign then go just left of it and you will see her tail.  To the left of the tail you can see the little pile of babies on her back.  I'll try to get a better picture but I didn't want to disturb her and cause her to eat the kids. 

Finally, right above here is an unedited video of the Mexican Red Knee Tarantula as it stretches it's legs a few times.

That's all for now!