South American spider females pick their mates according to how well the nuptial gift is wrapped
Monday, February 3, 2014 - 11:30
in Paleontology & Archaeology
It's not only what's inside the nuptial gift that a potential suitor brings to a female Paratrechalea ornata spider that counts. It's the whole package, white silk wrappings and all, that can give one male spider the edge over another. So say Mariana Trillo, Valentina Melo-González and María José Albo of the Instituto de Investigaciones Biológicas Clemente Estable in Uruguay, who carried out the first study to look at the role of silk wrappings during the courtship and mating of this South American semi-aquatic spider. The findings were published in the journal Naturwissenschaften – The Science of Nature.