Keeping mantids and true spiders vs. Tarantulas

[cacoseraph]

Thanks for posting that info, now I know not to let my new H. venatoria go too long without food. I was wondering though, I heard that if you feed them less that they will live longer. Any truth to this? I have no idea how long a female H. venatoria can live, she is about 4" right now.

it is pretty definitely known that among simpler animals (even up to mice) that a calorically limitted diet is pretty well positively corellated to a longer lifespan. probably not a totally linear relationship, but i wouldn't be surprised if parts of it were close (i.e. feeding twice as much halves lifespan).

the problem you personally might encounter is that you would need to get a good feel for how little you can feed your spider without hurting it. i have killed tons of bugs trying to slow grow them. i recently probably permanently damaged a B. smithi (pre?)penultimate male slow growing him. i am not thrilled with me.

 

[Lorgakor]

Thank you for the info, much appreciated. What happened with the B. smithi? Sounds interesting.
I feed once every two weeks or so, sometimes three weeks, so I'll let the H. venatoria have the same schedule (or non-schedule lol!) and see how it does.