Stegodyphus lineatus
The act of reproduction, regarding the female, leads to an increase of digestive enzymes. This allows her to eat more prey and to stock more nutrients. The digestive enzymes then start to digest the inside of the organism itself, except for the heart, guts, and mostly the ovaries. Once the offspring are born, and until the mother dies, the mother regurgitates for two weeks the fluids stocked inside as highly nutritive food for the progeny. Ninety-five per cent of the mother's mass is digested by the offspring. They will grow to three times their original size between their birth and dispersion. During the period when female spiders are caring for their hatched offspring, the mothers do not eat, and their offspring only eat the food that the mother regurgitates along with the mother's body at the end of this time.
Regulation of gastric function
As dietary protein is digested, it breaks down into smaller peptides and amino acids, which directly stimulate the G cells to secrete even more gastrin – a positive feedback loop that accelerates protein digestion. As discussed earlier gastrin stimulates by activating parietal cells and stimulating ECL to produce histamine (histamine stimulates parietal cells to produce acid). Small peptides also buffer stomach acid so the pH does not fall excessively low.