Molt

This is my cat, Belle. She is attempting to figure out what exactly it was that I threw at her, that got stuck to her back and made her twitch and spin in circles while making crazy eyes at me, and then finally fell off and sat limply on the floor. In case you can't tell either, it's the skin that Willow (my Chilean rose hair tarantula) molted earlier in the day.

Remember that blog post a while back where I talked about having exotic pets as a kid? I think I left out the slew of tarantulas that we went through. When I was very little, from the time I was born until I was 7 years old, my dad worked in oil fields. He would go out and check on the rigs, and, since most of them we're out in the middle of nowhere, he would run into his share of wildlife. When he could (which, as I remember it, was fairly often) he would catch things and bring them home. He brought back live rattlesnakes, horny toads, turtles, and tarantulas. Of course he would kill the snakes after my mom and I had seen them, but the smaller things we would occasionally keep.

There was one in particular, though, that has stuck in my memory for longer than the others for the simple reason that after he died, we kept him. I don't know whose idea it was, or why, but I can remember very distinctly, having a small, pink yogurt container in the 'back room' (our laundry room and storage area) that contained a very dead tarantula. (We also had a jar with a rhinoceros beetle in it, but as far as I can remember he was just something we found and thought was cool, and never a pet.)

Anyway. I just wanted to say that even though we had tarantulas when I was growing up, I can't remember any of them living long enough to molt. Maybe they were all male, or sickly, I don't know for sure, but it was a really cool thing to experience! I noticed her this morning, on her back up against her hidey log, and then when we headed out for the day she had already popped through the back part, and I could see the new her folded up inside...and by the time we got back home this afternoon she was all fresh and shiny and ready to go! It was so cool. And then, of course, I pulled out the molted skin and proceeded to throw it at everyone in the house, including the cat. It's currently sitting on top of my printer while I decide what exactly I want to do with it. Hopefully Belle won't 'kill' it during the night and it will still be there when I get up tomorrow. (And by tomorrow I mean later today because, yeah, I am writing this at 3 am.)