02.03.2022

Praelarvae and larvae occasionally parasitize on eggs and Praelarvae/Larvae

That tarantulas are in most cases cannibalistically predisposed, is sufficiently known. Often the nymphs of the 1st moulting stage are separated quite soon, because they often start to decimate each other very quickly.  For a long time it was thought that the prelarvae and larvae would only feed on the yolk of their very voluminous abdomen and that the spiders would only be able to feed themselves from the nymph stage onwards. The opposite is the case, because this cannibalism can start much earlier, as the video and the pics below show. On the Pic 1 you can see 2 prelarvae, which are parasitizing together on an egg. In the Pic 2 and the video No. 1 you can see a larva, which has hit its chelicerae deep into the abdomen of another larva and now starts to suck it out. Video 2 shows the same procedure in prelarvae. This is evidence that praelarvae and larvae are capable of actively ingesting food well before the nymph stage. However, on several occasions we found that praelarvae parasitizing on an egg or another praelarvae could not detach from it independently. In the course of time, the eggs or the praelarvae began to decay or become fungal and infected the praelarvae and larvae attached to them, which led to the death of the Spiders.