Some male spiders launch themselves at great speed off their cannibalistic female partners, to avoid being eaten after copulating. The mechanism at play in catapults is similar to the way they make their exit. The spiders have active and potentially fatal sex lives. The female arachnids have an appetite for sex. The males of the species have developed an escape plan that involves using the joint in their front two legs to launch themselves off the females at high speeds. Current Biology published the team's research today. The female can use super-fast actions to escape her attack, according to Shichang Zhang, a behavioral ecologist at Hubei University. There are many other methods male spiders use to counter sexual cannibalism, including nuptial gifts, pretending to be dead, and cutting off their own genitals. The catapulting approach is new to the researchers. In the lab, the team had 155 pairs of spiders, and the males jumped off the females to safety. The males that did not do the behavior were killed and eaten.
The tibia-metatarsus is where the males' ability to launch off their sexual partners is found. The legs of the spiders are sheathed in thecae, which increases their elasticity. The surface area of the thecae was larger in the front two legs of the male spiders.
These spiders don't have sex like humans, they only have sex for 30 seconds, and the male spiders use a palp to inject sperm into the female.
Eggs aren't immediately fertilized by the females. The female can store sperm and only release the egg when it's ready. If the sperm is found wanting, it can kill them.
If a male can't sense the danger, it may not catapult before the female kills it.
Through the catapulting, male can escape female sexual cannibalism and female can choose males with high quality. Those with good quality can catapult off far or several times.
The males dangled a silk safety line near the webs where they were having sex in order to return if they wanted to try again. The action is equivalent to a human jumping a third of a mile from their partner after sex. To be safe.
There are Spider Fossils in the South of France.
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