Ciekawostka: The Black Widow spider eats her mate during or after sex

Evidence: 64 • authority: 72

Latrodectus hesperus, the western black widow spider or western widow, is a venomous spider species found in western regions of North America. The female's body is 14–16 mm (1/2 in) in length and is black, often with an hourglass-shaped red mark on the lower abdomen. This "hourglass" mark can be red, yellow, and on rare occasions, white. The male of the species is around half this length, and generally a beige color with lighter striping on the abdomen. The population was previously described as a subspecies of Latrodectus mactans, and it is closely related to the northern species Latrodectus variolus. The species, as with others of the genus, build irregular or tangled webs. Unlike the spi…

Evidence: 54 • authority: 88

Body Size, Not Personality, Explains Both Male Mating Success and Sexual Cannibalism in a Widow Spider. Theory suggests that consistent individual variation in behavior relates to fitness, but few studies have empirically examined the role of personalities in mate choice, male-male competition and reproductive success. We observed the Mediterranean black widow, Latrodectus tredecimguttatus, in the individual and mating context, to test how body size measures and two functionally important aggressive behaviors, i.e., male aggression towards rivals and female voracity towards prey, affect mating behaviors, mating success and sexual cannibalism. We specifically selected voracity towards prey i…

Evidence: 54 • authority: 72

Latrodectus mactans, known as southern black widow or simply black widow, and the shoe-button spider, is a venomous species of spider in the genus Latrodectus. The females are well known for their distinctive black and red coloring and for the fact that they will occasionally eat their mates after reproduction. The species is native to North America. The venom can cause pain and other symptoms, but is rarely fatal to healthy humans.

Evidence: 54 • authority: 72

Spider cannibalism is the act of a spider consuming all or part of another individual of the same species as food. It is most commonly seen as an example of female sexual cannibalism where a female spider kills and eats a male before, during, or after copulation. Cases of non-sexual cannibalism or male cannibalism of females both occur but are rare.

Evidence: 45 • authority: 88

Family Affects Sibling Cannibalism in the Black Widow Spider,<i>Latrodectus hesperus</i>. Abstract Adaptive foraging tactics are shaped by genes, the environment and gene–environment interactions. Because of relatively high levels of agonism toward conspecifics, spiders have been a popular focus for behavioral–ecological examinations of conspecific predation, or cannibalism. Surprisingly, studies examining the underlying, proximate assumption that cannibalism in spiders is a heritable trait shaped by interactions between genes and the environment are virtually non‐existent. Here, we examine the influence of family on the expression of sibling cannibalism in the post‐hatching, group‐living p…

Evidence: 45 • authority: 80

Latrodectus mactans (black widow spider)

Evidence: 45 • authority: 80

Extreme developmental synchrony reduces sibling cannibalism in the black widow spider, Latrodectus hesperus

Evidence: 45 • authority: 92

A novel multi-objective dynamic flexible job shop scheduling algorithm using reinforced learning based black widow spider algorithm.. In today's fast-paced manufacturing environments, solving flexible job shop scheduling problem (FJSP) has become essential due to swift design-to-manufacturing-to-consumer cycle and frequent disruptive events like new job arrivals. This study proposes a novel reinforcement learning based black widow spider algorithm (BWSA-RL) to address the multi-objective dynamic flexible job shop scheduling problem (MODFJSP). The algorithm utilizes a hybrid reinforcement learning framework for dynamic adjustment of procreation and mutation rates of BWSA-RL. The switch betwe…

Evidence: 45 • authority: 92

Crossing experiments suggest a simple genetic basis of complex male self-sacrifice phenotypes in widow spiders.. Sexual cannibalism is among the most extreme outcomes of sexual conflict, and the Australian widow spider Latrodectus hasselti is well known for this behaviour. Curiously, males of L. hasselti actively facilitate cannibalism through self-sacrificial mating traits. During copulation, the male somersaults his abdomen onto the female's fangs and develops an abdominal constriction that prevents his premature death, allowing him to monopolize paternity. The closely related sister species L. katipo, however, lacks self-sacrificial mating traits. Given the close relatedness of the two s…

Evidence: 45 • authority: 72

Sexual cannibalism is when an animal, usually the female, cannibalizes its mate prior to, during, or after copulation. This trait is observed in many arachnid orders, carnivorous insects, several crustacean clades, gastropods, and some snake species. Several hypotheses to explain this seemingly paradoxical behavior have been proposed, including the adaptive foraging hypothesis, aggressive spillover hypothesis and mistaken identity hypothesis. This behavior is believed to have evolved as a manifestation of sexual conflict, occurring when the reproductive interests of males and females differ. In many species that exhibit sexual cannibalism, the female consumes the male upon detection. Female…

Evidence: — • authority: 35