Steven E. F. Brown

Spiders drink water, either from drops in their web or on vegetation — they don’t just get all the fluids they need from the liquefied innards of their prey. When keeping a spider in captivity (as we have this medium sized Araneus diadematus in a gallon jar) it’s important to provide them with a source of water, most often a moist cotton ball in the container. But since this female has been well fed and is probably getting ready for one more molt, she hasn’t made a web today and is hanging out on the tip of the forked branch in her jar. When I used an eyedropper to put some water on the wood, she used her pedipalps and chelicerae to drink it up.