Not sure if I should submit it, but I thought people might be interested in this.
People often ask me how a spider (especially a large one like a tarantula) drinks and if she even needs to. Fact is: tarantulas need to drink! Which is why, if you want to keep one, you should always have a well-filled bowl of fresh water inside, too.
Spiders take up fluids through the same opening as their food, the mouth opening which is on the bottom of the cephalothorax (the ‘upper’ body part). For drinking, they have to lower this opening and, as a consequence, their entire body onto the water which, as you can see, looks really artistic in my spider’s case! I was very happy this morning when I was finally able to catch my tarantula drinking on a picture since this doesn’t happen very often and is also a very short process (which also why the picture’s quality isn’t the best, sorry).
AS: this is great information, and a cute picture to boot!
submitted by troete