Do Spiders Eat their own kind and species?
They generally avoid it, but if they are hungry they won’t pass up a meal, even if it’s another member of the same species. However, many spiders will build webs or burrows neighboring other spiders, even of different species. It is also not quite true that female spiders always eat their mate. Spiders have a predatory instinct that does not exclude members of the same species. Males are also smaller than the female. This difference in size is not so noticeable with tarantulas and other spiders that don’t build elaborate webs, but in cobweb and orbweaver spiders this difference can be large, like males being 1/10th the size of the female as adults. This makes the male a good sized meal for the female. However, if males were always eaten on sight by the female, the species wouldn’t procreate. Males have ways to bypass the female’s predatory instincts, usually a visual dance along with rhythmic drumming of the abdomen and legs. In web builders, the male will tug on lines of the web in a
