⚠️THIS POST IS PHOLCUS PHALANGIOIDES PROPAGANDA⚠️

From 2025

Both my current spiders (cobweb spider and cellar spider) molted this week!

OK, so you know how instead of gradually turning rust-red like iron does, copper turns from, well, copper to light blueish-green, and how copper compounds will turn a flame blue-green? Well, arthropod hemolymph (their equivalent of blood) uses copper-containing proteins to transport oxygen, and so spider "blood" is blueish-green—like how our iron-rich blood is red.

You usually can't see it, but right after molting this spider is unusually translucent (the exoskeleton is still hardening up) and the legs still have a distinct blue-green hue.

Bonus pic: ._.

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#SpiderSunday: Look who molted!

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#SpiderSunday: a tantalizing glimpse inside the abdomen of the _Pholcus_ cellar spider. ???

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It's that time of the week again: time to feed the spiders. I think the cellar spider (_Pholcus_) in the jar won't need food for a while—I've never seen one so fat! I also managed to get three fruit flies into the orbweaver's (_Larinioides_') web with tweezers.

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The cellar spider (_Pholcus_) under the radiator in my bedroom, enjoying a hand-delivered flightless fruit fly (with a second course wrapped up nearby). Note the distinctive eye arrangement: ( ∵ .. ∵ )

I'm simply amazed by how well these spiders can survive in very dry environments with extremely little food!

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