*wipe wipe* palps aka windshield wipers

It is the absolute cutest thing when mozart wipes her eyes with her palps (the little fuzzy appendage-like things that are right next to her bright green fangs.) they look like itty, bitty, fuzzy windshield wipers that just alternate cleaning one eye to the next. She'll usually clean her eyes and her feet after play time, when she gets to play outside of her container. Today she's been entirely overactive, walking 'round and 'round the cylindrical plastic as if asking me is it time to play now? how about now? now? play? play time now? so i've let her outside many a many a times today. it's awfully windy today too, which disappointed me earlier today because the harsh wind caved her little web house in, forcing me to clean it out. now she has to make a new nest to sleep and have privacy. i hope she wasnt too mad at me when she realized it was not there anymore. well, actually she's been playing with me all day, so i'm not too sure she even notices its absense.



looks like she's cleaning her feet right now. rubbing them vigorously against each other. ope, now she is looking at me and moving her palps up and down. i think she wants to come outside again. i wonder if the palps are a way for spiders of the same species to communicate. mozart is always walking, stopping abruptly and looks straight at me, and she moves her palps up and down quickly and slowly. i've never noticed any patterns of her palpal movement, and when i move my lips in fish-kiss movement or use my index and middle finger to mimic her palps it always seems like she responds to me. we take turns moving our palps up and down and then she walks away. it's quite strange.



actually, when i first began trying to interact with mozart, i pretended that my fingers were palps. she used to hide inside of her nest house whenever anything came by her sanctuary. unless it was food, anyways, then she caught on quick when it was time to eat, she'd be stalking her prey before it was even in the container. eventually, i was able to get her to peek outside, with her two front feet and her little face, and i would use my fingers to "palp" talk with her. she'd move her palps, and i'd move mine. it took a little bit of time before she would fully expose herself and leave her little house. but now she seems to always be wanting to come outside and play. it's such a cute thing. she's like my little puppy that i dont have to poop scoop with a plastic baggy.



she does get shy and nervous around people that she doesnt know yet though. she keeps a keen eye on them, literally moving her head to track their movement. she'll hide if in a wrinkle of my jacket and peer out from there to watch them. after feeling safe again, she will leave the wrinkle and walk around again.







maybe this weekend i will have my husband spend some time with her. he's been my partner-caretaker of mozart since we adopted her, and the other day at the library, he put his index finger forward to try to get her to walk onto it, and instead of doing so, she stood tall in a deffensive position, raised her two front legs and palps. i said to him, "ummmm... maybe you should take your finger away because it looks like she's going to attack you." it made me sad that she felt that he was a threat! for goodness sake he's the other hand that feeds her!!! but i suppose it is also because i carry mozart around with me everywhere. she always sees my face throughout her days. maybe she can be my guard dog.



she's also a very clumsy spider. she has a safety line that her spinnerettes frequently attach to different surface areas, to ensure that if she fails a jump, she will not plummet to her death. many times she forgets about these safety lines that are an array inside of her container and she'll jump right into it, trying to get to something else - i.e. a cricket or some sort of other food, and she'll get tangled and she'll hang awkwardly upsidedown while trying to get her feet to find something to grip and correct her position.



just to make another point, since she's eaten that cricket yesterday, her poops have quadrupled in size. and it looks like white-out. perhaps i will be able to patent an all-natural-non-chemical smelling spider poop white-out.

mozart pooped on me!!!

these pictures were just taken last night, so now you can see the difference between the before molt and after molt. when i let her out last night for these pictures, she turned her tiny butt to her right side, i saw her spinnerettes moving quickly, and suddenly a small greyish drop fell onto my pinky. EW! she pooped on me! it looked like a tiny grey bird poop and my husband smeared it all over my finger with a tissue. i'd never had a spider poop on me before. but there's a first for everything.

she still has the beautiful heart on her back. you can see on her semi-profile picture though that her head has grown enormously pretty much over night! her body is so little compared to her head! she is actually eating a cricket as i type. so her abdomen is swelling up plump again and she is looking much more proportionate. which also means that little white heart is getting bigger... heheh i feel so special to have a beautiful spider with a heart to show off!

she has been extremely active today. it seems like she's getting used to going to school with me everyday. before i began taking her to school with me, she hid in her house a lot. but now that she's been getting to go 'round, she's been very interactive. when we wake up in the mornings she's awake and walking around in the container and she is not scared! she loves walking around all over my hand and jumping hand to hand.

ope, it looks like she's done with the cricket now. she just dropped its shriveled remains on the floor of her container and is now resting in her little house. awwwwww she has fooood coma! so precious!!!

molting

look at the perfect little heart on her back! i love it!

These pictures were taken just a few days before she molted. look how beautiful she is! These awesome pictures were taken by my wonderful husband! He's so good at his work!!!

I'm so please with how they turned out!!!

so mozart was molting the other day. she'd never done that before, so i completely freaked out. i thought she was dead bc when i tipped the container over her whole body just tipped over too. and her legs were all gnarled and broken looking. i was so scared that i'd lost my little mozart! she's been with us since last summer! ahhhh!!! but then i looked again and realized that my little mozart is growing up. she came outside to play yesterday, and she was playing peek a boo with me, like she always does before she comes outside, and when she peeked out of her little house, i said "oh my god your head is so huge! yeah, her body looks about the same size as before, but her head is probably about one and a half times bigger! i was so shocked at how big she'd gotten so quickly! literally in a day's time!

she's just sitting on my computer right now while i type. just chillin i suppose. it's far too cold outside today so we cant go play outside. makes me kind of sad because she'd been so excited to come out and play all morning long.

i think it's funny how quickly is seems like she picks things up. in math class today, after i set her down inside of my bag, she came part way out of her house for the duration of the class. and when everyone started to leave she went back inside her house, as if she's getting ready to go! so cute!!!!

and now we wait for english to start. i didnt feel like going to my usual sitting places because it's so damn cold outside today, so we're just sitting in the hallway of the english building. boring i know. it's much more fun outside. mayber later. i can only hope the weather gets better so that my little mozart can enjoy some outside time today.