Men that are 鈥渙nly after one thing鈥� should be grateful that they are dating women. Female kill and eat partners that demand quick sex in place of extended courtship.
In contrast, a little bit of wooing goes a long way in arousing her passions for the male, new research reveals.
from the University of Toronto Scarborough, Canada, studied the courting habits of redback spiders by setting up females with either one or two males. They then filmed the courtships as they unfolded.
Advertisement
The single males spent up to five hours courting the female by alternately plucking the web and beating on her abdomen before attempting to mate. During copulation, the female always started to eat the male, but roughly 90% of the time she would let him escape after a quick nibble to have another try at courtship and mating.
When a rival was present, the story changed, although this depended on the strength of the competition.
Size matters
When the males were of differing size, the smaller of the two competitors would often try to sneak past its rival and copulate quickly, leaving just 45 minutes for courtship. The females seemed to resent this, since the team observed a greater probability of cannibalism following shorter courtships.
Overall, the females ate roughly half of the 鈥渟neaking鈥� partners in these cases.
鈥淧rolonged courtship probably gives information on a male鈥檚 endurance,鈥� says Stoltz. 鈥淲e speculate that it might indicate whether the male had been able to find good food reserves when they were young.鈥� Killing the lazy suitors prevents them from mating for a second time and fathering more of her young.
The female redbacks didn鈥檛 seem to take such umbrage at the shorter courtships if there wasn鈥檛 an obvious size difference between the two males 鈥� eating just 35% of their suitors after the first copulation while allowing the majority to stay within the competition.
However, she was still wary of allowing him to father more of her offspring, being far more likely to have repeated sex with the male鈥檚 rivals if he didn鈥檛 pay enough initial attention.
Journal reference:
