A team of bio-scientists affiliated with several institutions in China, working with a colleague from Australia, has found that the females of some species of funnel spiders play dead to attract male sexual partners. In their study, reported in the journal Current Zoology, the group collected several specimens of Aterigena aculeata and tested their behavior in the lab.
Funnel-weaving spiders are spiders that spin webs in the shape of a funnel. They are found in many places around the world, but only those species living in Australia are considered dangerous—without treatment their venom can cause severe pain and even death. Many species of funnel-weaving spiders are known to engage in sexual cannibalism, in which the female kills and eats the male after coitus. This behavior has led to mating problems for some species, resulting in sexual catalepsy—in which one of the sexual partners plays dead during some or all of the mating process. To learn more about this behavior in A. aculeata, the research team collected several samples and carefully tested them in their lab.
Read more here: https://phys.org/news/2023-03-female-spiders-dead-potential-male.html
