We collected, per species, 40 adult female A. keyserlingi, E. transmarina, L. hasselti, N. plumipes and P. graeffei from locations between Sydney and Ballina, New South Wales, Australia, during trips made between October 2014 and January 2015. To ensure spiders of approximately equal size within species were used and that no gravid spiders were collected, we measured each spider’s body length and width to ±0.1 mm using digital Vernier calipers (Caliper Technologies Corp., Mountain View, CA, USA) and mass to ±0.001g using an electronic balance (Ohaus Corp., Pine Brook, NY, USA) upon collection, and discarded any particularly large or heavy (>50% above the mean) individuals. We returned all the required spiders to the laboratory at the University of New South Wales, Sydney, where they were placed in 115 mm (wide) x 45 mm (high) plastic circular containers. The containers had perforated wire mesh lids with a 20 mm long slit cut into them using a Stanley knife to facilitate feeding with a 50 μl micropipette. We pre-fed the spiders 20 μl (A. keyserlingi, L. hasselti and P. graeffei) or 50 μl (E. transmarina and N. plumipes) of a 30% (w/v) glucose solution daily over five days (for details see ) to standardize the diet of all spiders prior to experimentation. We reweighed the spiders after the pre-feeding treatment and any individuals who lost > 50% of their initial mass (one A. keyserlingi, one L. hasselti and three N. plumipes) were discarded.