Young cupboard spiders sometimes turn cannibal and eat their siblings

Child cabinet spiders that may’t discover sufficient meals resort to devouring their siblings.

Cannibalism has been noticed in a number of spider species, but it surely usually entails grownup females consuming males throughout or after intercourse. In a single species, the black lace-weaver, moms permit themselves to be consumed by their very own offspring within the final sacrifice.

Now, Jeffrey Harvey on the Netherlands Institute of Ecology and his colleagues have found {that a} frequent species known as Steatoda grossa engages in a special …