There’s a lot we do not know about the tarantula and spiders, and one of those things is the mysteries about how they mother their young. To delve into this, I decided to round up some of the most interesting facts I’ve found about tarantulas and spiders, and how mothers treat their young.

I was inspired to make this roundup after reading an article about the black lace weaver spider, who sacrifices her life for her babies – literally. I thought human mothers were loving and selfless, always giving of themselves, but this spider takes the prize! It turns out that once her babies emerge from their egg sacs and grow a little bit, the mama lets her spiderlings feed off her body – no joke, she lets them eat her alive! There’s a gnarly video of the black lace weaver spider mom laying down for her children and allows them to attack and eat her, sacrificing her life for her spider babies. It is completely instinctual, and a part of the life cycle for this spider. Here’s a video of this super interesting spider behavior.

Another very interesting spider mother is the wolf spider. If you’ve ever come across a photo of a big spider with hundreds of babies on her back, it was probably a wolf spider. I cannot even imagine what it’s like to carry this many of your young around with you, but wolf spider mamas do it all the time!

Another interesting fact about arachnid behavior and parenthood is regarding tarantulas. Some tarantula mothers will actually eat their egg sacs or babies. Not much is understood about why this happens or why it doesn’t happen in other situations, but this is why many tarantula owners will remove the egg sacs from the mothers.

Another interesting fact has to do with how tarantulas parent their children. To help ensure the health of their egg sac, tarantula mothers not only guard their egg sacs and become very defensive over them, but they will also busy themselves by turning their egg sacs a few times per day to help their eggs develop well. They will also, in cases of a successful egg sac hatching where there is no cannibalism, watch over their spider babies and protect them. Particularly in communal species, tarantula mothers and their babies will live in perfect harmony. One fact that I think is particularly precious is that some tarantula mothers will actually feed their babies – they’ll catch food for them and share it with them like a family meal! That is so cute to me! Something that is also fascinating about this situation is that despite having terrible eyesight, tarantula mothers can sense the difference between their babies and prey, despite them being about the same size. Here’s a great video about this!

I hope you found this interesting! What do you think about spider mothers?