bolus?

[Sydney A]

I am new to this. I won a chilean rose hair in a Halloween contest and caught the bug so to speak. I now have a pink toe and several more coming by fedex. Do I read it correctly that my spider is gonna barf up an owl pellet, lol? I have the Tarantula keepers guide that I am reading thru, but could someone let me know what to expect? Thanks.

 

[tony manning]

9 times out of ten they are more hardy than you think. but look up individual species as all are slightly different

 

[Sydney A]

I have read that, I was speaking really about the bolus. Is that the cricket that gets sucked dry?

 

[Tim Benzedrine]

Yeah, it doesn't regurgitate the bolus as per an owl pellet, but I guess a slight correlation could be made between the two, both are comprised of the indigestible portion of the meal.

 

[miss moxie]

Yeah, think of it sort of like a crab. You eat all the gooey stuff inside but you don't eat the hard shell. So when you're done eating, there's still a shell left over. When you're done, you roll it up on a newspaper and toss it out. That's essentially what a bolus is, only webbing instead of newspaper. If I'm understanding correctly anyway.

 

[EulersK]

Some arachnids (and very few spiders) can eat solid chunks of food, much in the same way that humans do. The vast majority of spiders have no mandibles (chewing parts), meaning they can only intake liquids. Many species' venom not only incapacitates and kills their prey, but it also partially digests the innards so they can more easily eat. As others have said, the bolus is just the ball of mostly exoskeleton from whatever they were eating. Note that they do not regurgitate their meal, such as is with the example of an owl pellet.

They do, however, regurgitate one drop of crystal-clear fluid to clean both their mouth parts and fangs. More often than not, they then re-ingest the fluid, as to not waste even one drop! This is all covered in the book you're currently reading, so keep at it

 

[Ellenantula]

I have never found a bolus in the OBT's enclosure. When I re-homed him, I found an old molt, but no bolus anywhere. I read somewhere (and you know that everything on the internet is true) that baboons will grind the food remains into dust. Wondering if mine does that.
The other Ts all have plenty of discards for me to clean out.

 

[Sydney A]

Interesting, thank you. More left behind then barfed up. Back to the book, lol.