October 13, 2025
Coco is remodeling-and she scraped her butt!
Our Mexican Red Rump tarantula, Tliltocatl vagans, “Coco,” is quite the character. She was one of our first tarantulas and has grown rather quickly over the past two years. Coco lives in a coconut shell that I repurposed as her hide. Lately, she’s been spending a lot of time on an avocado leaf from my wife’s plant, which, as I’ve discovered, makes a great little hide.
Scrape tho?
So today I noticed a slight scrape on her abdomen, toward the back. It doesn’t seem to be leaking any hemolymph, which is body fluid, but if it gets worse, I will isolate her in a safe spot (The ICU) and take care of it. I’ll probably just use a touch of cornstarch on the scrape, applied with a pipette, but ONLY if it is leaking. Other than that, I’m just going to watch her, and if I get the chance or if I do have to re-house her to a safe place, I’m going to make sure I file down the edges of that coconut shell because, obviously, she’s made the entrance a little tighter, and that’s possibly what caused her scrape. I don’t know, but part of the game is keeping an eye on it and keeping an eye on my husbandry and taking really good care. I’m going to be watching Coco pretty closely for the next few days. Who know-maybe it’s just a bald spot from hair kicking.
Coco is very interesting. I highly recommend Mexican Red Rump tarantulas; they’re easy to keep, forgiving, and love digging and kicking dirt around…especially into the water dish. So snarky.
cya!