Reply to thread

Ok, you devil , but where is the payoff? What did we learn from it? That a colony of omnivores will eventually eat a spider that's molting and defenseless? We have to assume that's what happened, correct? I imagine they didn't all just attack a spider that was awake and aware, in a mob. It's not surprising, to me at least..roaches are opportunistic feeders. Were the roaches being fed regularly? What were the controls for this experiment? Any omnivore will eat a molting spider if it's starving..does that mean one of my fat, well fed dubias will try it, by itself, in a strange enclosure? I just don't think so, I think roaches are smarter than crickets.. And yes, communals can work...but what's the point? Where is the benefit from a communal, what is the risk, and what is the gain? Are these experiments for the sake of curiosity? What we're talking about is experimentation with living things for the sake of curiosity, with no real reward, for the species or for ourselves. We all know that communals can work, or work for a while and then end badly, it's already been done...And yeah, the guy bred the slings for himself, and his spiders are his, to do with as he pleases. Would people feel the same way if it was a dog in this little experiment? Or would he go to jail for animal cruelty? I know there's a line there, but it's thin, very thin. It's a matter of semantics I suppose, how you view other living things. People who like to keep roaches as pets probably would hate the fact that I feed them to my spiders on a regular basis. But they're well fed and happy until their sudden end, and the payoff is a well fed and happy bunch of spiders. So it's not like I'm killing them because I think it's interesting to observe what might happen...see what I mean? If someone is going to do experiments and research that could kill one of their pets, it should at least have some kind of valid, beneficial reward. Nothing was gained here, in either of the experiments listed above. Your rebuttal?