Rough sex - Araneus style!

wilippa · #1 (**permalink**) 09-09-2011, 07:17 PM

I've just spent a few minutes visiting the inhabitants of the wilderness I call the end of my garden (several Araneus Diadematus specimens in only a few square metres) and witnessed an interesting interaction.
Female was at the centre of her web. Male at the edge, plucking on the anchor threads with his front legs - I'm assuming he does this to attract her attention and signal that he is not prey. She appraoched gradually at first and they got quite close. Then suddenly, she lunged at him. He dropped on a thread, motionless and at first I thought she'd bitten and killed him. Then after about thirty seconds of not moving, he slowly re-climbed his thread, a little shakily at first. The female returned to the centre of her web and the male regained his composure and wandered off.
Why would she react by attacking him? She must have known he wasn't prey.
Are the females picky about which male they mate with?

UB4 gardener · #2 (**permalink**) 09-09-2011, 10:04 PM

last year over our pergola we had a female garden spider, in the end i nicknamed her Liz after liz taylor, the reason... well i watched her court and then consume 7 would be suitors. this is number 6 with Liz before his number was up. not that i had too much time on my hands or anything.
Chris

wilippa · #3 (**permalink**) 09-09-2011, 10:17 PM

Chris,
What a fantastic picture! It really shows the size difference between Liz and her suitor. Did she actually let them mate? I can't tell from your photo if that's what they're doing?
I do wonder whether my male was playing it safe. I mean, having been "gone for" once he clearly wasn't going to stick around and let her try again and consume him. After all, he's got plenty of other options at that end of the garden!
Of course, I understand the sound ecological reasons for eating the male AFTER mating - it gives the female a better chance of laying healthy eggs - and is a sacrifice the male is prepared to make.
The problem is my Juliet didn't even give Romeo a chance - unless of course spider sex is a lightening fast affair (forgive the pun!) that happens so quickly it can be mistaken for an attack.

UB4 gardener · #4 (**permalink**) 09-09-2011, 10:49 PM

i'm not sure how long these guys take to mate, but i have watched a theridion species "at it" for minutes and he went away fit and healthy. i would assume for these guys with the size difference it would be a quick affair but i don't know for certain. one for our spider experts there i think. what did amaze me is how long a process it was for him to get that far, as you mentioned in your post, the web plucking and tooing and froing, from memory some of these easily took in excess of 10 minutes just to become a snack at the end of it. i took my first pic with him in frame at 11.21 and she grabbed and wrapped him at 11.33 but he had been loitering and testing the web long before that. fascinating to watch. I have watched another species zilla diodea and she was having none of it, she would chase them to the edge of her web. very aggressive she was. http://www.youtube.com/user/ccourtuk.../0/W432LG-RyR4 (shaky and out of focus half the time but shows her aggresion)

edit:and no, i have no idea if any of them mated with her.

Chris