Chilean rose tarantula,
Grammostola rosea

Adult tarantulas molt every one to two years.
The last molt was two years ago.

1. Pumping
2. Molting
3. Hardening

The place is secured with spider webs. The spider lies on its back and pumps a molting hormone through its body. The upper shield bursts open and it frees itself from the old exoskeleton. After that, the spider is exhausted and not yet fully hardened.

Pumping:
The tarantula pumps a molting hormone (ecdysterone) from its rear end to its front end. This process takes several hours. I found it in this position at 3 p.m. At just after 8 p.m. it burst out of its upper shield. Since it is lying on its back, the upper shield is down. The video is at 200x speed.

Molting:
After the tarantula has burst out of the upper shield, it moves out of the exoskeleton with rhythmic movements, carefully pulling out its legs. This lasted two hours from about 8 to 10 p.m. The process seems well thought out as its old shell falls off perfectly. The video is at 100x speed.

Hardening:
The tarantula lies on its back, peaceful as a baby. It is still very soft and therefore very sensitive. It stretches its limbs by increasing body pressure, actively moving the limbs and then hardening the new exoskeleton. The spider web is nice and soft and not only protects against injuries, but also against intruders such as hungry insects or harmful microorganisms.

After half an hour the tarantula has gotten up again, but is not yet completely hardened. It remains in this safe place for the next few days and recovers.

🙃💭 At the intersection between 'Peace Linden' and 'Wall Street'. A wall serves as a fortification and protection. It is a means of fulfilling the need for peace. But if everyone isolates themselves, there can be no exchange and mutual understanding. The needs of one party can change, and those who do not identify with others could feel justified in using their strengths to their advantage.

🌤🌱😎 I think that what I am doing on Instagram and other social media is very important. People's connection to nature has diminished greatly over the course of industrialization and urbanization. This is also reflected in the media landscape, where nature has become increasingly less important over the last 200 years. While people are losing this connection, we are losing more and more species, and with the loss of this diversity we are putting our livelihoods at great risk. I impart knowledge and perspectives, and give nature an emotional closeness.🍀🐞

You can find more information on my website (link in profile). There you will also find more data on the species presented and my artwork. Since I do everything myself, there is a lot of work involved. I appreciate your moral support. 💚💛🧡

Dakota is the only one of my animal roommates who would most likely never snap or bite. But because he's a snake, people are afraid. A 2008 study showed that the sight of a snake silhouette triggers stress in babies as young as 8 to 14 months old. So it's not something learned, but innate. Other studies have confirmed similar reactions in non-human primates. But the stress reaction does not automatically lead to a fear of snakes. As early as the 1980s, it was recognized that rhesus monkeys only react fearfully to snakes after they have observed it in other monkeys. It was an advantage for our ancestors to be able to recognize a snake quickly and react immediately. For one thing, venomous snakes pose a danger, and for another, our ancestors were also natural prey for giant snakes. But Dakota is just a harmless corn snake that strangles its prey.😇

These are the oldest handwritten notes from one of my ancestors. It was my great-great-great-grandfather who recorded the birth of my great-great-grandmother Margarete's eldest sister Magdalena in July 1815. The notes continued until 1882. In 1877, for example, the birth of my great-grandmother Katharina was recorded. It was written in a family Bible, and the writing is Kurrent script - an old form of German-language handwriting based on late medieval cursive writing. Thanks to artificial intelligence, I have now managed to decipher all of the notes and can add to my family tree.

Because it was a patriarchal system, the male heads of the family usually kept important records. I don't know his name, but it says "22. Julius was born our Magdalena. The newborn child is a female." (orig.: "22. Julius ist unsere Magdalena zur Welt geboren. Das neugeborene Kind ist eine Weibsperson.") so I know that the author was also a parent of my great-great-grandmother Margarete in 1830.

I am a great ape! 🐵🍌

Even in my childhood I was interested in the systematic classification of living things. I was given a set of a few thousand information cards. There was a picture on the front and information on the back. There was also a large index card box. I sorted all living things according to their relationship. Humans and their ancestors were listed in a separate family, which was next to the great apes. However, this made no sense to me. The fact that chimpanzees are more closely related to humans than to orangutans told me that they must at least be in the same family, or each should have their own family.

When I was at school, humans were not considered great apes. The idea that humans are just apes is still met with a lot of rejection today. But not in science, where, based on genetic research, humans are listed in a common family, the great apes (Hominidae), together with the orangutan, gorilla and chimpanzee species.

Many people, even those who are inclined towards scientific explanations of evolution, have a problem with this because they see it as a threat to the uniqueness and specialness of humans.

I often argued with my mother that humans are animals. She - who studied biology - was strictly against this. She said that humans have unique characteristics and abilities and that the mind is something that separates us from animals. A widely held view - still today. I do not share this. Humans are animals and, like every animal species, humans have special abilities. The mental abilities that were once only attributed to humans have long been observed in other animal species - albeit in different ways: self-knowledge, logic, language, culture, grief and more. But the idea that animals are similar to us in their perception and thinking is a tough pill for humanity to swallow.

Relaxed Saturday 🫠🌞

Our grandparents visited me and my little brother in the children's home. Both loved animals and fed me lots of books and cakes. My grandmother was an artist and painted animal portraits with make-up on paper. She was a cousin of the German painter Rudolf Kortokraks. That's probably where my artistic streak came from. Both were politically active. My grandfather had a great sense of humor and was the son of the German founding father and humanist Dr. Werner Hilpert. Despite this, we grew up in simple living conditions. My brother and I lived in children's homes for about three years in total. My mother was homeless for 9 years. Life cannot be put into categories. The first children's home was privately financed and offered a little luxury (e.g. computer room, sauna, excursions, supplies), but we were always used as advertising figures (e.g. newspaper reports on company XY, which sponsors the children's home with a toy race track, etc.). The second children's home, where the photos were taken, was much simpler and was only able to afford modern equipment such as new furniture and computers - a few years after the fall of the Berlin Wall - thanks to a generous donation from the Lions Club. Instead, we often went out into nature together to pick mushrooms and berries and learned to haggle at every opportunity. Many of the residents of the children's home were mentally handicapped. Then I made friends and learned early on what the true qualities of being human are. It is being human.

We are cuddle buddies 🥰

🥳 I'm officially 38 years old now! 👾

It's clear that you find me creepy. But I'm not a robot and I'm not a vampire. I owe my irresistible, everlasting youth to chocolate and cheesecake.🥧 And to my sunflower mentality.🌻🌞

The picture shows me in my 1999 version in the children's home. And the other in my 2024 version on my daily walk through exciting adult life. In both photos you would see the same smile, in the second one the shutter just took too long...

I hope you all live to be as old as me - it's absolutely worth it! 🫠✨️