Mother Spiders Make Themselves Tastier For Carnivorous Offspring

Spiders: the more I learn about them, the more I suspect that the reason we think they're freaky is because... well, they really are. A new study has found that these creepy crawlers are so strange that they actually make themselves for their carnivorous offspring.

That's at least in the case of mother velvet spiders, who at least deserve a "#1 Mom" mug before their children tear into them with voracious and matricidal abandon after they're born.

It has long been known that female velvet spiders fall victim to their children after the little darlings reach a certain maturity. This may seem rather brutal, but cannibalism is actually a very necessary part of the arachnid and insect world. Mothers needing sustenance to ensure they lay healthy eggs will sometimes find themselves chewing on an after-sex snack that looks a lot like their late husband. What a coincidence...

There are signs that these creatures have even adapted to encourage this kind of behavior, where hungry female mantids in need of a powerful nutritional source will let off some sexy pheromones that males just can't get enough of. A healthy male mantis will willingly walk right into the clutches of a starving female, just to have sex and then quite literally lose his head.

Now, a new study has determined that in the case of velvet spiders, that big pre-adulthood meal may be a lot less like matricide, and more like one final great martyrdom to ensure spiderlings make it in the brutal natural world.

The study, recently published in the Journal of Arachnology, details how Stegodyphus lineatus females spend most of their short motherhood regurgitating food for their children to feed on. During this same time, the mother's abdominal tissue naturaly starts to soften - the result of a gradual breakdown that began as soon as she started incubating an egg sac.

This, according to researchers at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel, unlocks a host of key nutrients in the mother's flesh, even while it makes it easier for her spiderlings to 'dig in,' so to speak, when the time is right.

In this sense, the mother's own internal processes basically prepare her as her children's first solid meal - quite a way to graduate into adulthood.

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