Researchers have found that a tiny species of tiny cells known as weavers Philoponella prominence Using a truly unique strategy to prevent marital inequality. After the mating, the men jump. Literally.
P. projecting A “social” spider. The social spider lives in a communal web with a population of 300 inhabitants. They help with web-building, hunting, feeding and sometimes they even share the responsibility of brood care. After hatching, the spiders make their own web attached to their mother. But when the season of intercourse comes, all that joy disappears.
Many species of spiders have wildly one-way sexual dichotomy and P. projecting This is enough to make intercourse and intercourse an uneven thing without exception. But many species of female spiders often attack, kill, and even eat their mate after mating. Some species of males will tear off their own legs to confuse their inamurata denta – sometimes Before Intercourse
It’s barely a quarter of an inch long for a lot of violence, especially for a non-venomous social spider. So, P. projecting Develop a unique solution. After the two spiders flew over them, the males P. projecting As a conclusion of the ritual of intercourse, one should physically run away from the woman – beautiful after intercourse, a beautiful one, if you will. During this jump, men also rotate hundreds of times per second during their backward pressure, although we do not know why. (Scientists we’ve consulted are equally divided on whether it’s aerodynamics or pure pleasure.)
The leap of faith
In observational experiments that provided this revelation, researchers have looked at 155 examples of “successful spider mating”. But for men it only takes four milliseconds P. projecting To give them a leap of faith. Thus, Xichang Zhang and colleagues patiently recorded 155 spider sex tapes with a 1,500-fps camera.
Even that framerate, however, could not confirm the crisp video from itself. The camera often takes enough time to focus that while doing this, the catapulting spider has already moved to a different focal depth. “Once the spiders mated, people had to adjust the equipment to focus on them,” Zhang told Smithsonian magazine. “The spider is small, so most of the time, the males catapult before the focus is ready.”
Men who do not run away have a bad outcome. P. projecting No poison; They “mummy” their prey in silk. But a woman’s suitors are not immune to this aggression. Women P. projecting After mating, they will trap and mummy their own companions. They hold their captives so tightly that their legs are broken, crushing or suffocating helpless prey. Of the 155 mating events, only three men did not move away. Every man who did, survived. All three did not eat.
Hydraulics
The males of this species are ready for a quantum leap by folding their legs like a jackfruit knife. They then tie their folded legs to their partner’s body. Women P. projecting Men’s double the size, which makes it more believable as a way to escape. Zhang compares the position to that of a backstroke swimmer, folded and tied to the side of the pool.
A wild nope is displayed: two are depicted here Philoponella prominence The reunion of spiders. Photo: Shichang Zhang
For how they actually jump on them, it’s all hydraulic. Spiders do not have any muscles that they use to stretch their legs. Instead, “spiders have a large muscle in their chest, and when they compress it, they can shoot body fluids into their legs and straighten them out really fast,” said Jonathan Coddington, Smithsonian’s Arachnida and Myriapoder curator. Instead of a post-quital nap, men P. projecting Quickly stretches his legs, pulls himself away.
“Jumping spiders use their four hind legs to jump. What’s strange about these boys is that men use their first pair of legs to shoot themselves in the air,” Coddington, who was not involved in the study, said in an interview. “It’s amazing to see in an Arab Weaver.”
In fact, not all jumping spiders are created equal or have the same advantages. But hope is eternal in the spider’s brain. Men P. projecting Even create a silken “tether” that fixes the web of their chosen women before they do an overture. If they are able to escape their gaseous, some masochistic males climb up just behind the pond to try, again.
The paper appears in this week’s issue Current Biology.