Some male spiders prefer to eat old females rather than mate
with them
The Black Widow spider gets its name from the popular belief
that female spiders eat their male suitors after mating. However, a new study
has shown that the tendency to consume a potential mate is also true of some
types of male spider. The study by Lenka Sentenska and Stano Pekar from Masaryk
University in the Czech Republic finds that male spiders of the Micaria
sociabilis species are more likely to eat the females than be eaten. The paper,
published in Springer’s journal Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology, outlines
possible reasons for this behavior.