How does a tarantula know to drink still water?

[LunarBeats]

Probably a weirder and more pointless question but hear me out.

Since tarantulas dont have brains and are primarily reactive creatures (requiring movement to trigger a feeding response in most cases, for example) how do they recognize still water and know to drink it? Furthermore, lets suppose they had another liquid instead of water offered. Would they be able to tell the difference and ignore it, or treat it as water?

I realize water is the only accepetable "drink" for them and have no intention of ever giving any of mine liquids beside water, but im just curious.

 

[Tanner Dzula]

as for drinking still water. they are reactive to stimuli, but this stimuli can be activated by the hairs on their body touching the water.
hell, some spiders can even sit on the surface of water and hunt in it.


as for the other liquid. well, i dont know, but it would be a nice theory to test(appropriately of course with a safe liquid) but since i dont think there is much else that is actually safe for a T to drink, i doubt it will ever be looked into that thoroughly

 

[Venom1080]

I believe tarantulas can tell whether water is safe to drink or not... If that's true, then they likely use the same process (or sense, so to speak) to decide what's water and what isn't.

Questions like these usually involve tagging @AphonopelmaTX ...

 

[LunarBeats]

as for drinking still water. they are reactive to stimuli, but this stimuli can be activated by the hairs on their body touching the water.
hell, some spiders can even sit on the surface of water and hunt in it.


as for the other liquid. well, i dont know, but it would be a nice theory to test(appropriately of course with a safe liquid) but since i dont think there is much else that is actually safe for a T to drink, i doubt it will ever be looked into that thoroughly

Yeah, thats the major problem. Ideally, I'd love to see if one of my spiders would drink some Mountain Dew or something, but there's no way that or most other liquids would likely be safe to test, meaning most hobbyists (completely understandably) wont want to take the risk experimenting, and the few who may be in active and more professional research probably dont view this as too pressing of an issue.

 

[AphonopelmaTX]

Spiders have a multitude of senses other than the ability to sense vibrations/ movement. They have a sense of smell/ taste (chemoreceptive senses) as well as the ability to determine orientation. Included in these senses are thermo and hydro sensitive setae. A tarantula can sense moisture and know where it is using hydro sensitive hairs as well as determine if water is drinkable through the chemosensitive hairs. The chemoreceptive hairs are located on the tarsi within the scopula pads as well as within the mouth. This is the same means a tarantula will use to scavenge dead prey items. One interesting behavior seen when one lures wild tarantulas from their burrow in nature is that they will grab a piece of grass used to simulate prey, hold onto it, then eventually "spit" it out. They think it's food until they try to eat it then know it isn't edible. You can put Mountain Dew in with your spiders, but chances are it will recognize it as something undrinkable and avoid it.

On another note, tarantulas or spiders in general are not the brain dead machine-like organisms people sometimes make them out to be. They have a keen awareness of their surroundings and have the biological tools to handle a multitude of natural and unnatural conditions thrown at them. Tarantulas have also been shown to exhibit problem solving behavior and some capacity for memory.

 

[ErinM31]

@LunarBeats I suspect that tarantulas and spiders in general would avoid caffeinated beverages such as Mountain Dew. There are other qualities of soft drinks such as the acidity that would probably also turn them off, but I do know that fruit flies dislike caffeine and I suspect that other arthropods would avoid it as well.

 

[FrDoc]

Yeah, thats the major problem. Ideally, I'd love to see if one of my spiders would drink some Mountain Dew or something, but there's no way that or most other liquids would likely be safe to test, meaning most hobbyists (completely understandably) wont want to take the risk experimenting, and the few who may be in active and more professional research probably dont view this as too pressing of an issue.

Ha! Trying to picture a pokie all jacked up on Mountain Dew.

 

[Tim Benzedrine]

Rats. I was ready to offer pretty much the same opinion, warning not to try the experiment on a speedy OW species.