Very early signs of dyskinetic syndrome? Or just reaction to being poked?

Salmonsaladsandwich

Salmonsaladsandwich

Eleventh Instar
I wanted to post this on arachnoboards, but it wouldn't let me sign up... It was being weird. Anyway, I recently got a rosehair tarantula ( I know, I know... Cheap wild caught cliche spider...) that I believe to be a female. I noticed that when I poked at her, she sort of slowly raised her front legs, or her back legs when I touched her abdomen... Which I assumed was just a "leave me alone" gesture or a warning that she might kick hairs. But I just handled her for the first time and she kept on raising her legs as I coaxed her onto me hand, and when she was walking on my hand I she sort of lifted her leg to take a step, then put it down but appeared to involuntary twitch it back up again or hold it still in the air. It sort of resembles videos of d.s but in slow motion. (Although I am keeping her at 64 degrees and not feeding her to help her adjust to the whole "hemisphere shift" thing) she can walk fine and only does this when disturbed or walking on my hand as far as I can tell. I'll try to figure out how to link a video of this behavior. Does this sound like a cause for concern, or do tarantulas normally lift their legs into the air and d.s just makes them do fast and involuntarily?

 
Ok, well I actually just looked up some videos of folks holding apparently healthy T's and they appear to do the same thing lol... Should've paid more attention to watching how they move, I feel stupid now... I suppose dks is just that behavior but in involuntary spasms... But I'm still worried... I dunno.

 
Yeah, forget it. I can't figure out how to upload anything or provide a link to the site it's hosted on. I just watched a video of someone handling a big rosie that was doing it way more than mine is. I guess it's just because they find themselves suspended in the air and are feeling around for something to grab onto. Sorry about all that. Thought I knew everything about spiders, didn't even know how they move lol...

 
It's actually a natural reaction out of a spider that is bumped or something like that. Nothing to worry about at all. And seriously... Rosea are getting bred in captivity more often then you really think. And I'm not falling for all of that hemisphere talk that people have been saying... Why would a tarantula that was born in the Western Hemisphere have to adjust if it stays in the Western Hemisphere? Rosea T's are fun tarantulas sometimes!

 
Well, seeing as it is that she's an adult or nearly so and I got her for 20 bucks I highly doubt that she's captive bred... CITES is gonna crack down on wc Rosie's any day now, and then their habitat will lose its as- is value and be turned into farmland ( or maybe not... Not much can grow in the atacama desert) but what I mean by the hemisphere shift is I'm keeping her cold and not feeding her so she knows it's winter now, and then hopefully she'll molt in spring and not go on a fast during the summer. Never said there's anything wrong with a rosie. She might be a pet rock but she requires about the same amount of care as a rock while being significantly fuzzier.

 
Never had a problem with my Rosie's and never had to keep mine cold. There still is a good chance it wasn't wild caught. I'd say maybe a 50% chance it wasn't. Can't wait until CITES cracks down and realizes wild caught isn't a good thing. Rosie's aren't expensive whether or not they are wild caught. A full grown female Rosie that was captive born only costs $20 at most. Anything over is too expensive. They can't have about 500 max total babies. I love my little yearling babies :) . Super skittish right now but great eaters!

 
I'd kind of like a Curly Hair as my next T... Anyway, bear in mind that banning the export of rare insects and other creatures ain't always a good thing. There used to be some type of morpho butterfly whose export as decorative pinned specimens brought revenue to a community in brazil. Then along came the regulations. Without the export of butterflies, the rainforest ecosystem lost its value and they deforested the area. That particular subspecies of butterfly went extinct, probably along with several undiscovered ones. Harvesting rare invertebrates is the lesser of two evils when it comes to habitat exploitation.

 
Right now I only have Rosie slings and OBT slings. Never said all insects should be not exported. But those that already are in culture and are over collected should be banned. I think the exportation and the destruction of habitat of rare and endangered species should be illegal. My next species is going to be Singapore blue. Very beautiful species.

 
I have a rose hair tarantula, and it is kinda like keeping a pet rock, lol! She hides in her log all day, unless I feed her, at which point she either eats, or fasts for up to 3-4 months! :o Still, holding her is pretty cool! B)

 
Well, unfortunately you can't ban habitat destruction. Banning the intentional collection of rare species is easy to do, but you can't convince starving people in developing nations that they can't chop down all the trees because the bugs will have nowhere to live... 7 billion of us and counting, we can't even hope to be able to share the planet with most wild plants and animals. I don't think any species have ever actually become uncommon because of collection for the pet trade. Habitat destruction and other reasons might make a formerly common species too rare to sustain any kind of collection, but the collection itself isn't to blame. I think g rosea is a fairly sustainable species to collect because it lives in deserts with barely any rainfall. That means no one has any reason to destroy its habitat. Even though Rosie's are supposedly getting smaller and smaller, I imagine that more has to do with the more accessible parts of its habitat being depleted rather than the species as a whole.

 
Lol it's all fine :) I mean, what would we learn if we didn't argue and didn't get the big picture :) . All in all, Rosie's are awesome little spiders especially when they are young. Veracious eaters and extremely slow growers! I had a female that didn't eat for 18 months! Scared the crap outta me!!

 
The whole random fasting thing is the main reason I'm keeping her cold and not feeding her... Even if I can't stop her from fasting, I can try to convince her to fast at a predictable time so I have some control over the situation. It's fun to tease her with a rubber maggot dangled on a string, though. Whereas the average person with a sick sense of humor dangles a rubber tarantula over another person to scare them, I dangle a tiny rubber maggot over a tarantula to disappoint them.

 
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I haven't seen any issues with fasting since then and I keep her at room temp. You'll have to tell me if this actually works. I already know my problem with why she fasted for me :)

 
I think I actually observed dks in wild spiders a few years back... I flipped over a flat rock and there were two wolf/ nursery web type spiders (can't remember exactly, they were lightly colored, large and had long legs) facing each other with their legs spread out flat that couldn't move- they could only twitch their legs. It was an adult male and a female and I guess they had been mating or something and the twitching was contagious? I brought them inside and the female died, while the male wasn't looking any better so I fed him to one of my rabid wolf spiders.(really stupid but it was fine.) I searched the web for "spiders twitching unable to move" and found a video of a pokie behaving exactly the same way and that's how I found out about dks and why I was so scared for my rosie.

 
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