A moment of silence for Spaghetti Joe, the mature female mountain huntsman spider who took up residence in my home toward the beginning of autumn this year.

_{Mountain Huntsman Spider | Sparassidae | Isopeda Montana}

Sadly, Spaghetti Joe passed away peacefully under the upstairs futon last week.

Her death appears to have been from natural causes and feline involvement is not suspected.

_{My girl Spaghetti Joe getting snug in a corner of the ceiling.}

Spaghetti Joe was a sizeable arachnid, with a body length around 30mm and leg span over 100mm (though it is difficult to get an accurate leg-span when they prefer to keep their leggies curled inward), she must have been about as big as they can get this far south.

With a life expectancy of 2-3 years it is possible that she was already quite old upon entering the house back in March, and likely died as a result of the recent cold weather.

Her enthusiasm for running out from behind wall-mounted objects at top speeds will be sorely missed and I will never forget that one time when she fell down from the ceiling and then sulked behind a desk for 5 hours.

_{R.i.P. Spaghetti Joe, beloved sparassidaughter and friend.}

In unrelated news: recently I signed up for an Instagram account. It will mostly be used for photos of fashion dolls, selfies, and maybe the occasional invertebrate when the mood strikes.

_{1/6 scale clothing is a convoluted exercise in externalised self-loathing.}

Contact and social media information on the About page has been updated accordingly.

That is all.