Molt Eating?

[Dreadwraven]

So my fiancee asked me an odd question the other day that I have never considered.

My b. smithi had molted over night and I awoke to find a beautiful spider and beautiful intact molt, so I took it out.

I had read somewhere before, that sometimes certain species will eat their molt to get back whatever 'nutrients' might be in it, and at somepoint I had passed that information along to her, so she said to me 'why did you take it out? what if she wanted to eat it?' I didn't really know what to say, so I told her I'd ask on-line.

Well I had read that information about a year ago, and now looking back, it just seems kind of funny and odd. I would think that a molt left in long enough would get trampled and crushed and perhaps disappear that way versus getting eaten.

Just wondering I guess, do tarantulas eat their molts occasionally, and if so, should we leave the molt with it so that it can eat it if it wants too? I'm thinking no to both questions there, but I don't know for sure.

 

[surena]

I don't think that the tarantula molt has any nutritional value. I believe that they eat the molt to get moister from it. So if you provide a water dish and enough humidity then there is no need to the molt to stay with the tarantula. Although I don't disturb the tarantula after molt so I can take the molt from its enclosure unless if I don't know the sex and need to get the molt before it dries out.

 

[bonesmama]

Don't forget that the T sheds it's stomache and esophagus linings as well, so by the time it could even think about eating it's exu. it would be quite dried out. I have never seen any of mine eat theirs, but I have seen them web it into their burrow walls, or move it around in their webs.

 

[angelarachnid]

Just wait till you have some rare stuff which you need to get the skins for sexing you will then see the moults being eaten if only the area around the book lungs.

Some spiders do this all the time, i think they "know" you need the skin.

Its not always all the spiders from a single species neither its down to individual spiders.

Ray

 

[Arlius]

They don't eat them, maybe 'chew up' a bit for 'packing and shipping' (getting it out or wedged into a corner of burrow) There is no nurtritional value or water content (as mentioned).
Now, whether they destroy them or hoard them when all you want to sex is of course another story (as mentioned... why am I posting?:? )

 

[Joanie]

I have a T. gigas who once, as a sling, chewed up its exuvium when it finished molting. The molt was chewed and mangled into a little bolus--I saw her do it, otherwise I would've never believed it. It was very weird. All my other t's have either ignored their molt, dragged it away from their hide and left it, or ripped it up, but that's the only t I ever saw chew a molt.

 

[Arlius]

It is still packing it, not eating it.... wrapping it up for disposal, not actually digesting it. It would have to be a pretty screwed up T to actually have the instinct to eat an exo (which it leaves behind in normal feeding) which is entirely solid (they eat liquid only) with no 'meat' to it whatsoever.

A T's fangs are kinda like our hands. They may use pedipalps to a degree, but in the end, the fangs are the true hands (notice when they move substrate)
So... if you want to pack something up, and get it out of web/hide/burrow, mouth is only way, and 'chewing' gets it all together.

Maybe the Gigas was just dropped on its head before the molt?

 

[Code Monkey]

As stated, they cannot eat the exuvium. The outer layer of cuticle, chitin and deposited minerals, is impervious to their digestive enzymes. Everything "edible" was already digested by the moulting fluid that is secreted between the old exuvivum and the developing new one.

They *may* be reclaiming the small amount of moisture involved with the moult, but that's speculative. Particularly since the worst exuvium destroyers tend to be the spiders from moister environments in my experience.

 

[Joanie]

Maybe the Gigas was just dropped on its head before the molt?

Definitely a possibility. No, I know t's do not eat their exuvia, but this one really did chew it into a bolus-like mass. She's never done it again, either, only that one time. Just an odd tidbit of tarantula behavior, I guess.