Cobalt Induced Heart Attack

[cryptly]

I'm checking my Ts and filling water dishes and I get to my female H. lividum. I open her enclosure and the first thing I notice is a horrible smell! :ack2:

My first thought is "OH NO!! She's dead!!!" Then I think maybe there's a rotting cricket or roach corpse in the container and decide to dig her up to be sure. I take container and digging supplies into the bathroom and proceed with digging up my cobalt.

It wasn't long before I find her. . .tightly curled and not moving. :bawling: I poke her with the spoon I was using to dig, and the body rolled onto its back, no movement. I'm really upset now, I was planning on breeding her when my friend's male decides to mature.

I scoop out her body, and start picking bits of eco-earth off of it, thinking that I'll preserve it somehow, and all of a sudden she's running off the spoon and across my bathroom floor! :bolt01: All I could think about was how close she was to my fingers and how she could've easily bit me while I was picking eco-earth off of her!

Once my heart started beating again, I caught her and did a full substrate change for her enclosure. Still have no clue what caused that horrid smell. :ack2:

[John Apple]

Kris
What was that saying about sleeping bears?? :>poke2<:
yer pretty lucky there and I am glad you cought the cobalt.
What you described I have seen happen with a lot of tarantulas [possum ]

Hey I was wondering did you ever find the source of the smell?? One thing I have done is put rolly polies [isopods] in all T enclosures and that has helped with smell, mites, phorid flies and they are neet to see in the Tarantulas home. I have only seen one get eaten by a T . Good cleanup crew

[Skunky]

I know nothing about tarantulas (I'm mildly arachnophobic ;)), so forgive my naivete, but just how bad would a bite by the cobalt have been? Are the bites among the different species the same, or some worse than others?

[cryptly]

From now on I'm going to assume any curled tarantula is alive, unless it's decayed into sludge or is mummified. The only T I've seen "play possum" was a B. emilia, never expected it from an H. lividum. :>poke2<:

I have no clue what made the smell. My guess is a bit of leftover cricket or roach that got buried somewhere. I thought about isopods, but I've never seen them for sale (I could be looking in the wrong places), and I'm leery about putting wild bugs in with my critters.

Different tarantulas have different strength venom, but none will kill you. Tarantulas from the New World (Americas ect) usually have weaker venom than ones from the Old World (Asia, Africa ect). My guess is that a Cobalt blue (H. lividum) would probably cause symptoms similar to other Asian species; a lot of swelling and pain, possibly muscle cramping and other unplesantness.

I have been bitten by a B. smithi (Mexican red knee), that just made my finger swell a little and it itched for awhile.

[John Apple]

Bites are variable depending on specie, some Pterinochilus , Poecilotheria and Heteroscoda maculata have bites worse than most, I have seen What happened to two people that were bit By an OBT [P. murinus], one friend was sick for more than a week and the other had dizzieness so bad for an hour that he had to sit down [why one did not learn from the other ...who knows as they know each other well] Both were also sweating quite heavily.
H maculata is said to have the worst bite but that all depends on who you talk to.
getting bit by any would not be a pleasant experience in any way, a 6" tarantula can have chelicerae [fangs] from .5 to 1" long...so the mechanical damage could also be pretty painful as fangs that big would friggin hurt :ack2peace

[cryptly]

I forgot about the mechanical damage. :ack2:

Between mechanical damage and venom, you don't want to get bit by any tarantula. :ack2: