How do tarantulas eat?

[gusman1204]

Going through my biology textbook i saw an article on "spiders" and it said that first spiders kill the prey with their venom, n then they use digesting fluid to break up the food... and i think i read somewhere else that tarantulas venom already contains the digesting fluid (correct me if im wrong)..so now im a little confused... or may be the article was reffering to true spiders only?

 

[misfitsfiend]

the venom contains it, but after its dead they inject some more and once its all liquid they drink their protien rich smoothie. :}

 

[WhyTeDraGon]

yummmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm!

 

[David_F]

Here's an article on spider digestion and food storage.

http://www.atshq.org/articles/Digestion.pdf

 

[Greg Wolfe]

Tarantula feeding

Tarantulas venom contains a cocktail of neurotoxin and enzymes that paralyze the prey, dissolve tissue to a yummy soup to drink. Tarantulas have external digestion as apposed to internal digestion like we do.
Having dinner at Burger King with external digestion would take a while... ;P