Adult female P.cancerides odd behavior

Nightstalker47

Arachnoking
Joined
Jul 2, 2016
Messages
2,612
My large female has been acting out lately, whenever I try and feed her she quickly turns to face the prey, grabs it and then let's go. I watched her to this about three or four times with a superworm until she finnally bit into it, she then let it go again, and repeated this process several times up until the worm was turned to mush.

I left the room for about fifteen minutes, I then returned to check on her and was happy to see she was finnaly eating. It's almost like she's playing with her food, not sure what to make of it. When I first got her she was quite underfed, super thin and I've been trying to push her into a molt cycle, only she still seems interested with prey.

Hopefully she's loosing her appetite cause she's nearing a molt, but I doubt it as she is a good 8 inches, and could not molt for quite a while. Maybe I'm just overfeeding and she's starting to get lazy but it's making me anxious... anybody ever experience similar tendencies from a large adult T?
 

Attachments

sasker

Arachnoprince
Joined
Oct 9, 2016
Messages
1,091
My B. harmorii was close to a molt recently and she displayed similar behaviour. Biting a superworm then letting go as if she has a toothache and inch away from it. A moment later she was chomping down on it as if nothing happened. A week later she refused prey altogether and molted not long after.

My B. harmorii is a ravenous monster and I think your P. cancerides is most likely even more so. It could be she is very close to premolt and just can't resist the temptation to eat anyway. Yours looks pretty plump though, so I think you don't need to worry that she becomes malnourished :)
 

Nightstalker47

Arachnoking
Joined
Jul 2, 2016
Messages
2,612
My B. harmorii was close to a molt recently and she displayed similar behaviour. Biting a superworm then letting go as if she has a toothache and inch away from it. A moment later she was chomping down on it as if nothing happened. A week later she refused prey altogether and molted not long after.

My B. harmorii is a ravenous monster and I think your P. cancerides is most likely even more so. It could be she is very close to premolt and just can't resist the temptation to eat anyway. Yours looks pretty plump though, so I think you don't need to worry that she becomes malnourished :)
Yeah exactly, I'm not too worried about her not eating since shes pretty plump. And your very right she was a fierce eater before, I'm hoping she will molt soon. It's going to be one massive T, can't wait to see that.
 
Top