Could a cricket have dismembered my arachnids?

[aenigmatica8]

Hi all, I found my Brachypelma vagans and my Phidippus audax in half and empty on two different occasions. The only connection being that there was a cricket in both cages. Both seemed totally healthy before this happened. Is it possible that the cricket killed them? I can’t imagine they would have put up with that! Is there any other possibility of how this happened?

 

[Adam96]

I heard they can damage T's when molting but I've personally haven't heard of them cutting a healthy T in half

 

[Sarkhan42]

I’ve had crickets kill mantid nymphs with reasonable size difference before, but never had it happen with a spider. I’d say it’s possible but I wouldn’t rule out something else killing the spider, then the cricket cleaning up afterwards.

 

[chanda]

I had a cricket behead an otherwise healthy flower mantis once, so I wouldn't rule it out - particularly if the cricket was bigger than the spider - but crickets are scavangers and will eat dead things, so it's also possible that the spiders might have died first, then the crickets just took advantage of the situation.

 

[dragonfire1577]

I had a cricket behead an otherwise healthy flower mantis once, so I wouldn't rule it out - particularly if the cricket was bigger than the spider - but crickets are scavangers and will eat dead things, so it's also possible that the spiders might have died first, then the crickets just took advantage of the situation.

Ia agree with this, either the cricket did it or it dismembered the spider after it died of other means.

 

[StampFan]

Here's a Youtube video from yesterday documenting a cricket killing a T, Tarantula Dan:

 

[aenigmatica8]

I definitely hope that they just died naturally and then got eaten. It just seems odd that the T was a sling. The jumper was an adult male but I saw no signs of aging.

 

[cold blood]

Both died naturally, then got dismembered? Yeah, and you might win the lottery twice in one day.....not likely. Cricket mandibles are formidable and a hungry cricket can see just about anything as food. My guess is the crickets were a little larger as well, likely what made the spiders less aggressive and the cricket more aggressive.

These spiders were almost certainly dismembered by the crickets. One of those reasons we always tell people not to just leave feeders run free in enclosures....super worms and mealworms are just as capable of this as well, but you can at least crush their heads to prevent t.

 

[NukaMedia Exotics]

Crickets are known to be able to kill molting/freshly molted Ts, so anything is possible (as well as scavenging the Ts after they died of other causes but if the Ts were smaller than the crickets its a good possibility they killed them).

 

[viper69]

Yes