Male black widow spiders destroy large sections of the female’s web during courtship and wrap it up in their own silk. New research published in Animal Behaviour shows that this home-wrecking behavior deters rival males, by making the female’s web less attractive to them.
Surprisingly, the females don’t seem to mind the destruction. The authors of the study, from Simon Fraser University in Canada, say the males’ behavior could protect the female from harassment, enabling her to get on with parenting.
The western black widow spider, Latrodectus hesperus, is native to western North America. Female black widows are around 15mm long and black, with a distinctive red hourglass-shaped mark on the abdomen. The male is much smaller, with a lighter tan color and a striped abdomen. Black widows build messy webs, which they use to communicate via vibrations and pheromones.
“The silk pheromones that female black widows produce are like scent-based personal ads,” said Catherine Scott, lead author of the study. “One whiff of the pheromone can tell a male about the age, mating history and even hunger level of the female. These complex chemical messages are just one part of the spiders’ communication system, and web reduction is a fascinating behavior that allows a male to interfere with a female’s message.”
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Source: entomologytoday.org
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