When we get our first tarantula, we often don’t realize until after the fact that a tarantulas’ body is incredibly complex and despite how small they are, there’s a lot that could go wrong! Molting is just one example where a tarantula might sustain an injury, but there are many other options. Today we’re going to talk about a common tarantula injury – a lost leg! And of course, how to deal with it.

How you treat your injured tarantula depends on a lot of different factors. For example, it would depend on how they lost the leg, the location of the injury (is the leg completely gone or just partially gone?), as well as how bad the injury is and if there is an open wound.

An injury could of course happen during a bad molt – that’s sometimes common where a leg will be deformed after a molt and need to be amputated. A tarantula’s leg may also get injured due to a fall or other trauma such as something falling on the leg. They might also get it stuck in a mesh lid or something else, and have the leg break or pull off. So one thing that will really impact the action you take will depend on how the injury happened.

The first thing you want to do is note how bad the wound is. Be able to determine if the wound is still open and needs to be closed. Is the wound oozing any liquid, called hemolymph? If it is, you will want to act fast and deal the wound with cornstarch or flour, as tarantula blood doesn’t clot on its own like ours does. The location of the wound will also matter for this. If your tarantula’s leg broke at one of its joints, you may not need to close the wound or do much at all other than wait for your tarantula to molt again. But if your tarantula had a messy break in their leg between the joints, you will likely need to close it or amputate it at the joint. Here’s a great explanation:

If the leg is severely damaged/deformed and you feel it may interfere with a future molt or is compromising your tarantula’s ability to move around and go about their daily business, you may need to amputate. To do this, you want to take a very sharp scalpel and cut the tarantula’s leg at the joint to have less blood loss and a cleaner growth. Also make sure you have a binding agent on hand so you can close the wound.

If your tarantula has had a clean break and their leg is working fine otherwise, do not worry. Your tarantula’s leg will slowly grow back over time, particularly when they molt. Tarantulas have an amazing ability to grow their limbs back – there have been several reports of tarantulas losing several legs in a bad molt, and they eventually grow all the legs back! You may not even need to wait too long until the next molt – I have heard that sometimes when a tarantula is injured, they will do an emergency molt to heal their bodies, molting sooner than they normally would.

Either way, it is good to ask about the experiences of others who have been in your position. Definitely post in tarantula facebook groups and look up YouTube videos from others who have been in your situation! To learn more about tarantulas and tarantula care (including first aid), check out my tarantula guide!