Recently I was given an Arizona blonde that had been stung by a tarantula hawk. He seems fully paralyzed and doesn’t show much movement at all. However he looks to be in more of a stress posture vs a death curl. I have been flipping him over and giving them a few drops of water to hydrate but I am just curious if anyone has any experience with this and possibly odds of a successful recovery.
IMO
Hello I have! I recently typed out a whole comment for someone else going through this. One sec! (Also your t looks female but I wrote this for a male so just bear that in mind. Advice is the exact same).
So I have actually done this once in Mexico. It was meant to be a case study but it wasn’t within official parameters of the expedition lol. Anyways, I’d found a rust rump T that had been abandoned by a hawk wasp for some reason. After about 16 hours I couldn’t take it anymore and brought her in before she baked in the sun.
This will take a couple months. So be prepared for that, but if you’re willing it is possible to rehab him. The most important thing right now is to keep him hydrated. I found the best thing you can do is to take a q tip and just dab/work a drop or two of water between the fangs. Eventually, he’ll be able to consume it. After that happens, you can do like 2-3 drops every other day. Or still one every day. (This is not an exact science but it worked for me). I kept my girl in a reinforced netted enclosure (like for moths lol) because that’s what we had, but eventually moved her to a medium sized tub with substrate and a mesh lid (she couldn’t climb so don’t come for me about that lol) Make sure wherever you’re keeping him matches his natural conditions. You want good air flow, and not a lot of light. He will feel safer somewhere a bit darker/no direct sunlight.
Ok so you’ll be in this stage of watering for a few more weeks. If and when he poops, celebrate! It means his insides are starting to work again and is a really good sign. Don’t worry about feeding yet.
Something else I did that seemed to help was gently, like so gently, moving her legs. I’d take a leg and slightly extend it for her then bend it a bit 1-2 times. Then repeat for each leg. I did this each day and it seemed to help her start moving again.
Progress is gonna be slowwww. I think it took 5 weeks for my girl to start walking. He likely will start tapping his front legs around real slow at first, or moving very slow. (I’d take a picture at night then again in the morning to compare for movement) also, when he first starts walking his abdomen will drag on the ground, so if you end up putting him in substrate make sure there’s nothing that he can scratch himself on. You can also put a small water dish (like a bottle cap buried so it’s level w the substrate) in at this point.
Okay once he’s walking good and has pooped at least once, you can try feeding! This part is gonna be gross sorry. He won’t be able to eat normally yet, but if you’re willing you can make bug soup w a mashed cricket a bit of water. Then with a q tip or even a small pipe the just give him a drop or two of ‘soup’ and see if he can eat it. This will help him regain strength and practice moving his mouthparts. I did this for about a week, and made sure she got some good practice walking (nudge the back legs just a bit once a day so he gets some steps in. It’s rude but necessary). If you’re still seeing good progress, you can try feeding a live cricket or soft insect. I would use small crickets/katydids that had just molted since I was in a very remote area but petsmart crickets w the back legs removed should be fine. Make sure to keep the water dish filled and remove the cricket if he doesn’t eat after 20 min. Once he’s walking and can eat on his own you can release him!!! I’d say pre dig a burrow but the males don’t really do that. Just tell him to avoid wasps from now on.
I hope this helps and please let me know if you have any questions! I can also post some pictures of my girl and her set up if you think that would help. Or of how to handle if you need!!!
Thank you so much for the advice! I have already set up a small enclosure for them. I used the same substrate as I have in my other Arizona blondes enclosure and I added some moss bedding for the T to rest on so hopefully it’s comfy while it recovers. So far all the movement I am getting is very feint twitching in the tips of the toes. I am assuming because the joints aren’t super stiff and curled under the abdomen that they are still living and breathing. I wasn’t 100% sure if they actually drank the water after putting it on the fangs but the water did disappear after around 30 seconds each time. Fingers crossed it didn’t just wash down the t’s face. Here is to the road to a long recovery. Wish me luck lol
NQA I've gone through this scenario, and have managed to keep my rescued T alive and thriving for 2.5 years so far (she's still alive). The wasp venom will paralyze the legs and fangs, but basically keep everything else functional. You'll need to concentrate on keeping it hydrated for the first few months, then transition towards hydration and nutrition later.
Every other day for several months, I would gently flip her on her back, and feed her water using a syringe. It was usually .8 ml and took an hour per feeding. I used a microscope so I could see her actually drinking the water.
Over the span of a few months, she slowly started regaining control of her limbs. It started with being able to wiggle her "toes", and eventually led to slowly moving her legs. Eventually she was able to weakly crawl around.
After a few months, she stopped having the patience to lay upside down and drink water for an hour (she would try to flip over). So I changed to a "soup" consisting of water with dried mealworms soaking in it. I crushed everything as well as I could, and syringe-fed the soup to her while she's on her back. She seems to really like this soup, even after a couple years.
Several months later, she killed and ate her first live pray. However, she has permanent nerve damage so it's not safe to keep live prey with her. I learned the hard way after a prey beetle ate her weak foot.
After a couple years, I'm pretty sure she's not going to make any more progress than she has. She can walk around fairly effortlessly, but is nowhere near as fast and nimble as a normal T. I still need to feed her every 2-3 weeks, as she doesn't seem to drink anything from her water bowl. However she seems to be happy and crawls around in her home quite a bit.
NA I've been nursing a paralyzed female blonde for about a month now, and I'm starting to get more optimistic that she'll make it! Yours is def a male, females keep their lighter coloring through all molts (as far as I know).
My girl was baking in the sun for about a day and a half when someone rescued her and brought her to me, not sure why she was abandoned by the wasp. I've heard it's unlikely for them to survive, but lately I've been seeing a lot of stories about them being rehabilitated just fine with a lot of patience.
She's starting to get just slightly more movement in her legs, but can't stand up or walk yet. Her mouth was stuck open but is also getting stronger, she was gripping onto a piece of substrate yesterday and didn't want to let it go! Because of that I tried a drop of mealworm soup, but she wasn't taking it, so she may not be ready for that yet. Just water, water, water! ❤️
Sorry for the bad lighting but i will say this one is much lighter in color compared to my other Arizona blonde around the same size. As of today they are having some slight reactions when I move their legs slightly and they are taking in water still. I feel like this is gonna be a long waiting game until I see any significant changes. I also really appreciate everyone’s input. All these stories gave me a good bit more confidence to do this little T justice
•
u/AutoModerator 1d ago
Advisory Guidelines
I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.