Below the fold.
I had to do spider cage cleanup today, like a good little Igor. Last week, they’d all been fed mealworms, which they promptly attacked and consumed, so today I was cleaning up corpses. Here’s a stack of dead mealworms to ruin your appetite.
Adults pretty much suck the bodies dry, but these are juveniles I’m feeding, and most of them can’t eat a whole mealworm…but they can kill them just fine, fill their bodies with venom, and slurp out a good meal or two out of them. Then I have to come along and clean up the charnel house. Now I know how a vampire familiar must feel.
On the right side, you might think that’s a dead spider. It’s not. They’ve been molting aggressively, thanks to this heavy diet.
The tally among the juveniles today was:
1 dead (it happens; this is a very low number for juvenile mortality)
21 molted
11 haven’t molted yet
4 were promoted from the baby vials to the juvenile boxes (when they look large enough to handle bigger prey, I move them from the vials, where they get fruit flies twice a week, to the bigger containers where they get weekly mealworms)
At this rate, I’ll have enough Latrodectus to start doing experiments by Christmas.
I haven’t even mentioned all the Steatoda and Parasteatoda I’ve got growing.
Are you Igor or Dr. Frankenstein?
That picture is not yucky, to me. Now Donald Trump…!
@robro
A picture of Donald Trump sucked dry like a Latrodectus mealworm would be very appealing.
garydargan @ #2 — You’re right…that image is very appealing. But the live DJT is downright gross, disgusting, and yucky.
@4: But is it too “downright gross, disgusting, and yucky” for even veryveryvery hungry young spiders? Perhaps more importantly, is it too full of bile/poison itself to be part of a healthy spiderling’s diet?
@1 It’s Fronkenstee actually!!
Fronkensteen, I meant. Bloody autocorrect.
Robro @ 2
Here is Jon Stewart, dissecting the really gross stuff.
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=JWfUcyPUl48
A good little Igor… but do you have your father’s eyes? And occasiona fingers, extra kidneys and other organs? The guild of Igors are quite parsimonous that way.
[OT]
Birger, pTerry’s Igors are just like the sparkly vampires. Not exactly canon, and not exactly serious.
And popular for a certain segment of the population.
The traditional trope (not in the original work, mind you) is the grotesque, servile, lisping, hunchbacked lab lackey who says “yeth, maaaster” and dutifully pursues grim tasks.
So his Igors are parodic and invert the trope, but alas they are no longer a singular entity such as Dracula’s Renfield as in the original old USAnian movies.
BTW, my now 9-yo pooch is named ‘Igor’ [iˈgoɾ].
Functional, it is; two syllables, unusual. And quirky, if I say so myself.
(Not so servile is Igor, but a great hugger and the best ever scavenger)
Do all of these cage cleanings make good additions to your compost bin, to add to your native garden for spiderfood and also to make a welcoming environment for your trophy wife’s flying spiders?
they do not smell any better then they look, in my experience.