P. Regius sling and bean weevils

faceinvader

Arachnopeon
Joined
Dec 23, 2019
Messages
2
Hi everyone, I'm hoping for some advice about feeding my p. regius sling I've had for a week - it's absolutely tiny, about 4mm, but it's producing silk, so I'm assuming it's on it's 2nd molt.

Anyway, I'm having real problems buying fruit flies where I am - I've ordered some but with the christmas post, they're not likely to turn up for at least a week. I found some bean weevils and, after some research that suggested they were pretty harmless and good for slings, I got those for the meantime - they're about the same size
There were 2 flies in its enclosure when I bought my jumper - it ate one of them on the way home. The other fly has just pootled around the cup and seems to have been completely left alone, so my sling hasn't eaten in a week. I put one of the bean weevils in there yesterday as I thought perhaps the flies were too small for it (they're less than half its size now).

The sling seemed really intrigued and literally followed the bean weevil wandering around the cup for a couple of hours, just dogging its footsteps and occasionally looking like it was going to jump at it. Twice, it even looked like it was drumming behind the weevil (?) but aside from a couple of half-jumps at the weevil's butt, nothing happened.

The sling got fed up after a couple of hours and retreated back to his web, where he even seemed to be vibrating the web when the weevil got close, so I took the weevil out and he's left with the original tiny fruit fly wandering around now.

I just wondered if anyone knew what the sling was doing when it was following the weevil around - was it first attempts at taking down something a bit bigger than it's used to?

In the meantime, if he doesn't take the weevils, it'll be 2 weeks he hasn't eaten before the fruit flies arrive. Is this going to be fatal for a jumping sling? He's built a fairly sturdy web but I can see through it and it doesn't seem to be sealed off, so I don't think he's in premolt.

Any advice would be gratefully appreciated! :happy:

update: I got home after work and the fruit fly’s been eaten and the sling’s molted. I’m assuming it happened in that order :)
 
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pannaking22

Arachnoemperor
Old Timer
Joined
Nov 25, 2011
Messages
4,226
It might have been sizing up the bean weevil to decide if it was worth the effort. Glad to hear it ate and molted successfully.
 
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