Injury

[Malhavoc's]

'Momma' my eldest black widow female and procuder of well onto 15 consecutive egg sacs within a 4 month period time [if that] has been injured. Her last leg [the one closest to her abdomen] was bitten by a wasp [prey item which she actualy seems to enjoy] it was leeking hemo for awhile burt it seems to have sealed itself. and her leg seems to be running at 90% of its former state. although she does seem to prefer only webbing with the one leg now..my question is this. I know a black widow female can live up to 3 years more after maturity but do they continue to molt like tarantulas or is the injury perm?

 

[Wade]

They do not molt after reaching maturity, so the leg will never fully heal. Sounds like she's doing OK though.

Wade

 

[Malhavoc's]

Thanks for replying wayne. I appreciate it. do any 'true spiders' molt again after maturity?

 

[Wade]

Not that I'm aware of, but there might be one or two out there somewhere that do. It's actually a pretty rare occurance among arachnids. Outside of mygalomorphs, the only other group I can think of that does molt after maturity are the tailess whipscorpions, amblypigids. I'm probably overlooking something, however.

Wade

 

[G. Carnell]

dont worry, bw's can take some dammage, i fed one of mine a huge locust/cricket thing which i caught in corsica, which must have been 6-8cm long! and the thing kicked a leg off the black widow- she then made 2 egg sacs :O