These Spiders Eat Their Mothers' Dead Bodies
September 20, 2017—Most kinds of spiders live solitary lives, but some, like the species
Stegodyphus dumicola, live in groups. These spiders perform acts that benefit the group—at the expense of the individual. All adult females care for the young, regurgitating a nutritious fluid that literally drains them of life. The spiderlings then eat their bodies. Even females that never mate do this, perhaps because their sisters' and cousins' DNA—similar to their own—will make it to another generation. READ:
Baby Spiders Eat Their Mothers Alive
Most spiders are loners,
meeting others of their species
mostly for mating or combat.
Not so with Stegodyphus dumicola.
Living in colonies, this species
takes maternal care to an extreme.
Females spit up liquid nutrients
to nurse the young, a process
that eventually kills the adult.
Later the offspring eats its mother.
S. dumicola females don't just
tend to their own brood this way.
Even those that never mate
perform the self-sacrifice.
The next generation keeps up the colony.
Males die soon after mating ...
and the females repeat the cycle of mother-eating.
