Anyone else feeling a bit deflated?

Hopefully not to the extent of this frog…

In case you weren’t aware, spiders, like this Wandering Spider from the Peruvian Amazon, employ a technique known as external digestion. This involves regurgitating digestive fluids which dissolve the insides of their prey into an easy-to-consume liquid.

In other words, the guts of this frog have been turned into a nice tasty amphibian smoothie which was enthusiastically slurped up by the satisfied spider – hence the deflation.

While spiders typically prefer diets consisting of small insects, and even other spiders, some won’t hesitate to have a crack at larger vertebrates such as this unfortunate frog.

If you look closely, you’ll even notice the Wandering Spider’s ferocious fang dangling out from its bright red chelicerae – this is a spider that is not to be messed with!

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Wandering Spider (Phoneutria boliviensis) consuming a Snouted Tree Frog (Scinax sp.), Manu Biological Station, Peru