CARNAL NATION

LiveScience reports that in comparison to male spiders, human men have it easy. For those men who feel they have their work cut out for them in attracting and pleasing female mates, a glimpse into the sex lives of the Australian redback spider may sway their points of view.

Not only does the male spider weigh a mere 1 to 2 percent of the female’s weight, but he must perform an elaborate dance upon her web to get her in the mood. Once she is pleased with his foreplay performance, she allows him to insert one of his two palps (copulatory organs) into one of her two sperm storage organs. His positioning for thiscomponent of the sex session places his abdomen above her fangs, which offers her the opportunity to partially devour his body.

After 15 to 20 minutes, they separate and the partially-eaten male must do another dance to please his mate and gain access to her other sperm storage organ. Researchers at the University of Toronto found that males who courted their mates for 100 minutes or longer were more likely to be allowed to mount the female for a second time. Those whose dancing and foreplay sessions were shorter were more likely to be eaten by their female mates after the first sex session.

But even those males who put on a great show and made it to the second sex session are bound to meet their demise. The best a male spider can hope for is to be killed and eaten by his mate after he has inseminated both of her chambers. And that is not even the worst of it. After prolonged foreplay-like dances, the male can easily be replaced with a rival spider who can sneak onto the female’s web and mate with her. This second male can take advantage of the first male’s handiwork in preparing the female for copulation.

"One of the surprising outcomes from the study is that females are unable or unwilling to discriminate the sources of courtship," explains researcher and doctoral candidate, Jeffrey Stoltz. "This has provided the opportunity for intruding males to exploit the reproductive efforts of rivals and thereby circumvent female choice."