African Salticid craves human blood. No, really, it does!

Peter_Parker

Arachnobaron
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Well they have vampiric butterflies already, so i guess there should be blood-feeding spiders, too {D
 

Frankenspider

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It's weird how vampire bats start peeing as soon as they start drinking blood because it's so fatty!
 

Peter_Parker

Arachnobaron
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Background check and it was a moth, not a butterfly (Calyptra thalictri), though apparently a lot of butterflies will feed on fresh corpses for the water content etc, like many of them do on dung and so on.
 

zonbonzovi

Creeping beneath you
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TravisK & I found a lone Misumena vatia traipsing about in the blood of roadkill porcupine this summer. It was probably hunting the insects eating the p-pine, though.
 

Moltar

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Did any of you guys actually like, read the article? What was so cool here is that this is a species of (jumping) spider that distinguishes between mosquitos who have or have not recently taken a human blood-meal. It dramatically prefers human blood to others and, when given the choice, will nearly always opt for prey that has recently fed on a human.
 

proper_tea

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Another interesting aspect of this article, especially for us, as keepers...

The article mentions that spiders are also picky eaters, and careful to take in a balanced diet. What are the implications for us, as keepers, who usually feed our collections on a limited number of feeder insects? Could diet be the reason for some of the unexplained deaths that we see (which are usually, and I believe wrongly, attributed to poor humidity control, or lack of hygienic conditions... or the old "sometimes they just die").
 

Moltar

ArachnoGod
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Yes, I found that interesting as well. Maybe this factor accounts, in particular, for seemingly healthy WC specimens dropping dead for no apparent reason.

I suppose all I can really do is try to give my feeders a balanced diet and keep my fingers crossed. I don't think I'll be taking any road trips to the southwest to collect WC feeders for my Aphonopelmas...
 

Vespula

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This is too awesome! Maybe If the spider can be induced to breed in large numbers, and then released, it could help lower the cases of malaria... possibly... Neat thought though! Spiders never cease to amaze me. :D
 
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