Reversal of the black widow myth

The Black Widow spider gets its name from the popular belief that female spiders eat their male suitors after mating. However, a new study has shown that the tendency to consume a potential mate is also true of some types of male spider. The study by Lenka Sentenska and Stano Pekar from Masaryk University in the Czech Republic finds that male spiders of the Micaria sociabilis species are more likely to eat the females than be eaten. The paper, published in Springer's journal Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology, outlines possible reasons for this behavior.

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