L. parahybana Eating His Exuvium

[Amanda]

I just checked on my Ts, and my very-premolt L. parahybana decided to molt in a hurry this evening! The shocker is that he's sitting on top of the exuvium happily munching on his old abdomen. I've heard rare mention of this with other Ts, but I didn't think it would happen IMMEDIATELY after a molt. When I looked at him a few hours ago, he was upright and sitting like a rock as always... unmolted. The molt is still soft, so I'm sure his mouthparts must be too. Has anyone else seen something like this?

On top of that, I was hoping to sex this molt. :wall:

 

[Talkenlate04]

Id just interupt him and try and sex it. I have seen this myself, its almost like they are trying to suck up some residual moisture or nutrition of some sort. I have no clue why they do it really.

But on the ones I want to sex I just take it from them. One very light nudge he will move.

 

[Snipes]

is it possible for them to eat it with their gummy fangs? I can understand them getting moisture like talkenlate mentioned.

 

[Amanda]

I'm going to say "chewing," not really eating. Either way, he was thorough...

He tore the abdomen off at the level of the epigastric furrow, and proceeded to mangle it completely. There was no making sense of a single shred of it. :wall:

'He's' looking good tho...

 

[Redip Spider]

From what I remember, they chew on the molt to regain moisture/nutrients, which has already been stated.

I think that it's pretty common. The only time I've ever managed to get an exuvium with the abdomen intact was when I actually watched the molt happen. Otherwise I've almost always ended up with a wadded up mess.

 

[LeilaNami]

My Avic. metallica did the exact same thing as soon as he molted. He also destroyed the important part

 

[By-Tor]

The reason is obvious, if you had some giant waiting for you to strip just to look at your underwear/private parts, wouldn't you want to get rid of the evidence

 

[ratz00]

A lot of my T's eat the opisthosoma of their exuvium. Which is why teh moment they are totally out of the exuvium and still resting, I quickly but very carefully get the old exuvium out. Sometimes its impossible to get the exuvium cause the T is kying over a strip of the opisthosoma, this is when it gets tricky. I hold a vigil till the T turns upright. thats when I pull it off with tweezers...

 

[Amanda]

That's what I usually do. I've got a pretty good collection of perfect molts in my collection, but he caught me by surprise. I'd last checked on him maybe 2 hours earlier, and he was sitting like a rock.

Only my N. chromatus has ever mangled a molt that way. I didn't see her do it, so I assumed it was just a tricky molt.

Oh well.

 

[MRL]

I just checked on my Ts, and my very-premolt L. parahybana decided to molt in a hurry this evening! The shocker is that he's sitting on top of the exuvium happily munching on his old abdomen. I've heard rare mention of this with other Ts, but I didn't think it would happen IMMEDIATELY after a molt. When I looked at him a few hours ago, he was upright and sitting like a rock as always... unmolted. The molt is still soft, so I'm sure his mouthparts must be too. Has anyone else seen something like this?

On top of that, I was hoping to sex this molt. :wall:

I guess you don't have any pokies!

 

[stooka]

lol thats true,every pokie i have here feel the need to mangle moults everytime.Most annoying when rearing slings and juves and not being able to sex them.As for "eating" the moult then my X.immanis has done it several times and after a while just leaves it.

 

[Kagekumo]

Ha ha, my P. regalis ate her last one too!

 

[midnight_maiden]

Eating the exuvium

My 2" A. geniculata and my 1" B. smithi both ate the opisthosoma area out of their most recent molts. I tried to take it from my genic and we played what seemed like tug-of-war for about a minute. When I finally got it away it was already too far gone.