[NatureNS] Spider Anatomy

From: uhoeger@dal.ca
To: naturens@chebucto.ns.ca
Date: Fri, 05 Dec 2008 17:25:56 -0400
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Spiders have a separate mouth and use their chelicerae (fangs) to 
immobilize prey and inject it with venom! Along with the venom they inject
some digestive enzymes through the chelicerae into their prey. Like
syringe needles the fangs have a closed channel in their centre that is
hooked up to the venom gland, not the digestive system.  Saliva and
digestive fluid is then added from the mouth parts. All this is the
described by the term extraintestinal digestion. In some species the
exoskeleton of the prey remains almost intact when the liquefied tissue is
sucked out by the spider (with the mouth, not through the chelicerae,
requires pretty strong stomach muscles to suck a fly's content through a
small hole ).  However, most spiders use chelicerae and mouth parts to
work their prey into pulp and add saliva (with digestive enzymes) to the
mass as they successively suck liquefied tissue up.  We feed ours here in
the lab  large cockroaches and all that's left behind is a dense ball of
cuticle fragments. Takes them a few hours to digest and ingest the usable
tissues.

Hope the inquiring mind got fed

Ulli


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