Two Cases of Extreme Moults

Recently I have a 'female' fighting spider that moulted into a large size male fighting spider. I named him Spawn. Spawn moulted on 4th Jan 2010. When I caught Spawn, he was a sub-adult male which looked like a female. All sexually matured males have a white face as oppose to sub-adult males which still poccess a blackish face. To tell a sub-adult male from a female, you got to look at its palps. If the end of its palps look swollen, it should be a male.

Two weeks after I caught Spawn, the sub-adult male moulted into large size male. Spawn measured almost 8mm in body length. From my experience, I didn't encounted such size before with previous few moultings. All were medium small to medium sizes and they measured from 5mm to 6mm.

The other extreme moult was from a small sub-adult male. After 2 days I caught him, 'she' moulted into a very small male spider. He measured around 4mm in body length.

I only managed to keep Spawn for two weeks and he passed away peacefully.

*** Contributed by Trevally ***