Are recently molted crickets less nutritious?

[WoofSpider]

I keep an LP at my office, so twice a week I remove a single cricket from my supply at home and take it with me to work in a vial. This morning when I got to work, I pulled out the cricket and noticed that it had molted in transit.

This got me thinking, would the cricket have significantly less nutritional value since it molted? The molting process itself takes energy and, if crickets are anything like tarantulas, the cricket would have been fasting while in pre-molt. So I think it would.

Oh, and I fed it to the LP anyway .

 

[mconnachan]

Simple answer pal - NO - they're actually more nutritious as a molted cricket is larger than it was before the molt.

 

[Ungoliant]

This got me thinking, would the cricket have significantly less nutritional value since it molted? The molting process itself takes energy and, if crickets are anything like tarantulas, the cricket would have been fasting while in pre-molt.

It might actually be a more nutritious meal, since many parts that would normally be hard and indigestible will still be soft.

When I happen to find them around feeding time, I like to give freshly molted prey. (My little Acanthoscurria geniculata goes nuts for soft-shell beetles from my mealworm colony.)

 

[EulersK]

Simple answer pal - NO - they're actually more nutritious as a molted cricket is larger than it was before the molt.

Well, not quite. @Ungoliant was more on point with her answer. Think about conservation of matter; the cricket did not eat or drink during molting, meaning that the cricket actually weighs exactly the same as it did before the molt even though it's larger. It doesn't just spawn matter when it molts.

Freshly molted prey does have the huge benefit of being easy to take down, though. There's no denying that.