Latro Food Saving

[8+)]

Not sure how common this is, but I found it interesting:

One of my sub-adult revivensis females trapped and killed a mealworm, but didn't eat it. Several days went by with it hanging uneaten in the web. One thing I like about feeding mealworms is how cool the translucent husk they leave behind looks. If it had been a cricket I might not have noticed, but with the mealworm it was obvious she hadn't eaten it. I wasn't too concerned because she still looked fairly plump.

The other day I got to enjoy watching her molt. Of course she was much thinner looking now, and I thought I'd give her a day or two before offering her a meal. Well the next night when I checked on her. she was eating the mealworm; which I'd pretty much forgotten about! This afternoon when I got home from work, she had finished it, and it had that translucent eaten worm look.

[What]

My Latros often will keep food like this, or even retrieve old carcases from the floor of the cage and resume eating them.

[8+)]

I've seen them retrieve old carcasses, but that's usually after a misting. I have an odd account about that, that I'll post in a different thread.

[Canth]

My revs do that too. But I don't notice always till the new fruit flies are in there so they each have maybe 4 good flies to eat now. Fascinating things. Plus, I JUST now saw the dorsal side of them. So pretty! Too bad they lose it eventually.

I'm interested in the story! :p

[8+)]

Yeah, I've heard about spiders saving food for later. It just seemed like a long time, four days or more, before she started eating it.

[buthus]

Ive seen females wrap up food and leave it for later... though somewhat rare. A good meal can stimulate sac production and if she catches another victim right before she produces a sac, she will often save it for later. I suppose ,molting could bring on the same behavior, but most of the time they slow down and ignore prey for some time before molting. Many will get sluggish for a week or two before molting. I suspect that within perfect conditions this sluggish period can be much shorter.
Old food items are often picked over especially after misting. Large prey can contain more meat than needed and it will often be discarded with plenty left for another meal or few. Ive seen widows go after prey that is amongst carcasses at the bottom of the enclosure and sometimes they mess up and end up "catching" some old dead thing instead of the fresh meat. If she doesn't get distracted by the live prey item and theres meat left in the carcass, she'll eat what she hauled up.
Whats really strange is when a female catches a couple meals and goes back and forth between the two. I just watched this a few nights ago when a female caught her roach and then killed her boyfriend. Every 5 or 10 minutes or so she would switch off and take a taste of the other meal. :D