PSYCHE 
VOL. XXXII. FEBRUARY 1925 No. 1 
A NOTE ON THE MOULTING OF THE TARANTULA. 
EURYPELMA HENTZIP 
By Phil Rau, 
St. Louis, Missouri. 
A specimen of this spider was brought to me from Texas 
by a friend on April 15, 1922. It lived in confinement almost a 
year, and fed upon various insects which were placed in the cage, 
such as grasshoppers, Dissosteira Carolina, cabbage butterflies, 
larvae of the pipe mud-wasp, Trypoxylon politum, larvae of the 
green June-beetle and unidentified small moths. It refused, 
however, to eat adult May-beetles, Lachnosterna sp., dung 
beetles, Canthon Iceiis, centipede, Scutigera forceps, bugs belong- 
ing to the family Pentatomidae, and male wasps, Polistes pallipes. 
It is also possible for this species to go for long periods entirely 
without food. At one time when I was out of the city, a star- 
vation period of two weeks did not seem to harm it. 
On one occasion I caught it in the act of eating a fat larva 
of the June-bug. The spider stood high up on its legs while 
under its jaws it held the large mass of meat which shortly 
before had been the larva. Upon repeated proddings, the 
spider walked slowly away carrying the morsel in its mouth. 
Finally under provocation the spider let go and then I saw that 
the food had been reduced to a mushy mass. So thoroughly was 
it masticated that only by a small portion of the skin was I able 
to learn its identity. That the tarantula actually chews its prey 
was demonstrated in the case of the larva of the mud wasp also, 
but whether the spider actually eats these food masses or only 
sucks the juices, I do not know. 
This spider lived an uneventful life, with the exception of 
its maneuvers of moulting. This process took place on August 
identified by J. H. Emerton. 
