Lunch For Two??

Ero aphana are commonly known as pirate spiders for their araneophagic habits and I've spent a few years now observing this species and feel like we are old friends. In May this year I managed to photographed a male and female sharing prey, a behaviour that has never been photographed before, mainly due to the fact this is a tiny nocturnal species that hides during the day. So a couple of days ago I found an immature male and female specimen and put them into an enclosure. This species are fairly tolerant of each other but I have observed a female eating a male so my fingers were crossed that the female was going to behave herself. The next night I collected a Platnickina tincta, another notorious spider hunter, and introduced it into the enclosure and then waited. It was over an hour before the female Ero aphana made the kill, slowly stalking it's prey before she was near enough to rush in and bite her victims leg and killing it nearly instantaneously. While the female feeds on the P.tincta, the male Ero aphana starts to stir and slowly makes his way to the banquet. He stops underneath the female and waits, and doesn't he wait! For over a hour he hangs motionlessly. When he does eventually more, the process is excruciatingly slow. For nearly three hours I watched this little fella move a few millimetres! So after what seemed like an eternity, he is within in biting distance and you know what, she dropped it, basically threw the dog a bone and him, like a good puppy ran after it. Ok, he didn't run, more of a leisurely walk.