My spider is missing a leg but how?

[dragonblade71]

I have been keeping a spider that I caught on a farm in an empty honey container. I'm not sure what species it is but it's black and about 23mm leg span. It's quite a voracious hunter. It grabs just about any bug that I put in there with enthusiasm. However, since Ive come back from interstate, I have discovered that this spider now has 7 legs which really caught me by surprise. I have absolutely no idea how it lost a leg. I don't think it molted recently. And I'm pretty sure it can't climb up the walls of the container to get any of it's legs stuck in the air holes in the lid. I did leave at least two pinhead crickets in with it when I left (I didn't see it go for them) but I can't visualise a cricket that size chewing off a leg....

 

[melanie5]

I know that sometimes a spider will chew off it's own leg if it's bothering him. If you feed him very large crickets, maybe that one did it.

 

[dragonblade71]

This was the first time that I had introduced crickets into this spider's enclosure and they were two extremely tiny pin head crickets. So tiny in fact that I was wondering if the spider was going to go for them. I saw one of them got stuck in some webbing but the spider seemed to ignore it.

 

[melanie5]

I think the spider may have had some some problem with the leg, maybe due to a pryor bad molt?
Is it a male? I have heard about MM true spiders to bite their own legs out of frustration.

 

[dragonblade71]

I can't see any 'boxing gloves' on the end of the palps so it could possibly be a female. Actually, it did molt over a month ago and seemed fine for the period afterwards. Last night, I put another pinhead cricket in which wondered over and touched the spider on the leg. Immediately, the spider tried to grab it but the cricket was too fast and got away. These little crickets are just too damn fast!