http://www.livescience.com/7555-creepy-cannibalism-female-spiders-eat-mates.html
talks about this phenomena and how it usually comes down to size difference. When the male is a lot smaller, the female is more likely to eat him. Why? Well she is hungry and he is small and available.
However, my attempt to breed my two Phidippus regius (royal jumping spiders) was not a testament to this idea. Rogelio and Xiomara (from the t.v. show Jane the Virgin) were purchased as a nearly mature couple of captive bred spiders from TarantulaCanada.com. I was advised that the may or may not molt one more time, and to place their enclosures side by side. After their last molt, and when they start to show a lot of interest in each other, they may be ready to breed.
I watched a lot of videos of jumping spiders breeding, so I would know what to expect. I researched as much as I could about how to do this. I thought I was ready, and I cautiously put them together, having just fed them both a mealworm, and closely monitored them. They seemed to mostly be ignoring each other. Then my four year old son needed a drink, or a sandwich or something: my attention was lost for just a moment and . . .
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| If it seems like there are too many legs in this picture it's because there are. |
I don't know if Rogelio saw it coming, I sure didn't. The astonishing thing was, they were nearly the same size. And she ate every bit of him. There wasn't so much of a scrap of exoskeleton left. It took her a very long time and afterwards she was very sluggish and her abdomen was ridiculously large for about a week. And then she molted. Boy did I get that all very very wrong.
And poor Xiomara, she missed what was very likely her only chance to produce offspring. She did however get the biggest meal of her life. Hope he was tasty.
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