I put some more spider photos on my Patreon account — last time I neglected to mention that I also post some on Instagram, where they are free and you don’t even need an instagram account to see them.
I fed everyone big ol’ waxworms yesterday, and today they’ve been turned into big ol’ spider bellies. The ones I photographed are all new additions, spiders that were born here in my lab as tiny little spiderlings, and have now been successfully raised to pulchritudinous maturity.
How often would spiders in the wild get to eat insect larvae? Perhaps hunting spiders like Wolf Spiders, but hard to see how any of the web builders would ever see such juicy morsels. Watching my Golden Orb Weavers most of their catch amounts to small moths and flies. Catching a butterfly causes great rejoicing but is rare. So, should you be feeding them waxworms?
In the house, things like silverfish, gnats, fruitflies, moths. Nothing as big as these larvae.
Their more regular diet is Drosophila. I splurge on fat waxworms every few weeks. They seem to be fine with the bigger prey, though — I’ve been stuffing them for a few months. The main problem is bigger prey that can fight back. I tried feeding them small crickets, but a few times I found they’d kicked the poor spider to death, so none of that anymore.
Oh, also, in homes closer to lakes and streams…mayflies. I’ve seen cobwebs just clotted with dead mayflies. Not so much here in town where I live.
I have read that the USA has an obesity epidemic but PZ you should not be extending it to US spiders. Think of the children!