Spider Sex
The male spider's primary objective in life is to impregnate one or
more female spiders before other males can. As it turns out, this is no
easy task in most species.
The first obstacle is actually finding a
female spider. Most spider species are completely solitary animals,
meaning they live and feed on their own, and they are generally spread
out over a wide area, making an available female relatively scarce. The
male spider has the daunting task of tracking down a sexually mature,
receptive female in the area before other males can get there.
In most species, the female makes it easier on the males by "advertising" herself with
pheromones, communicative chemicals. Many female ground spiders will secrete a pheromone on their
dragline,
the silk thread they leave trailing behind them. When males of the same
species come across the dragline, they smell the pheromone with the
chemical sensors on their front legs and follow the dragline to the
female.
Web-spinning females may release pheromones directly into
the air or coat their webs with pheromones, to make a natural "chemical
antenna." Males may also stake out developing, sexually immature female
spiders, so they can be the first to mate after the spider's final molt.
Once
the male locates a female, it has to contend with any other males in
the area. In species where the female spins a pheromone-coated web, the
male's first order of business is to destroy the web to cut off the
signal attracting any other males. If other males are present, the
spiders in most species will fight it out for the right to copulate with
the female.
After taking care of any other male contenders, the
spider's next task is to deal with the female spider itself. Male
spiders are generally much smaller than females in their species, making
them easy prey. The male has to signal to the female that it is a
spider of the same species, not food or a potential predator, and that
it intends to copulate. This is
courtship.
Courtship varies considerably among different species. Many
web-building spiders will use vibration as a means of courtship
communication. The male may strum a unique signal on a thread connected
to the female's web to identify itself and get across its intentions.
Many spiders with better eyesight, such as various wolf spiders and
jumping spiders, will "dance" to court the female.
Once the female
recognizes the male's courtship behavior, she will position herself for
sex, signaling to the male that she is receptive, or she will make it
clear that she is not receptive (by shaking her web, for example, or
just crawling away). If the male is desperate to mate, because all the
females in the area will soon lay their eggs, he may proceed anyway,
with full understanding that the female might kill him.
Source: howstuffworks.com
What do spiders normally eat?
A spider is an
araneae, an order of arachnid. There are many thousand different kinds of
spiders. All spiders have eight legs. Most spiders have eight eyes but some
have fewer than eight. They don't have ears, they feel the sound vibrations with
tiny hairs on their legs. Their bodies have two parts, the head and the
abdomen. The abdomen is plump. Spider blood is light blue. Blood fills up all
the empty space in the spider's body, it helps to keep the legs stiff so the
spider can walk. Spiders breathe, too. As spiders grow, they molt. That means
they shed their old skin and grow a new one. They molt many times before they
become adults. Many spiders live for only one year but some, like tarantulas
can live much longer. Spiders come in different sizes. Some are fuzzy and
others are smooth, and they come in many different colors. Spiders live in
many different kinds of places, water, gardens, houses, and the ground. They
live where it is hot and where it is cold. They live where it is wet and where
it is dry. Some are poisonous and others are not. They all eat insects and
some other animals. Read more about some of our favorite spiders.
