Sunday, August 31, 2008
Interesting Discovery of Nature
while doing some research work..
Sexual Cannibalism
A special case of cannibalism in which a female organism kills and consumes a male of the same species before, during, or after copulation. Rarely, these roles are reversed.
There are two obvious advantages to sexual cannibalism:
- Natural selection - Any male who succumbs to the female's attempts to devour him before mating occurs fails to pass on his DNA. This is only applicable in species in which the male is not fully complicit in his demise.
- Nutrition - Any male eaten by a female, whether he has mated with her or not, provides a female with nutritional benefits which might increase the quantity or quality of her offspring.
Therefore
- Males are prevented from further matings
- Males often try to avoid being eaten, suggesting it is not advantageous to them
- Males are usually eaten before they can mate
So how to mate?!
Male Strategies?
Male scorpions sometimes sting females while depositing their spermatophore. Male black widows and crab spiders often restrain females in silk prior to copulation.
Some spiders have specialized jaws that hold open the jaws of females during copulation.
Some male spiders, particularly nursery web spiders, bring the female a diversionary meal.
Some spiders and mantids delay their courtship approach until a female catches another prey item.
Others preferentially mate with females in ecdysis (that is, while the female is moulting) when cannibalism is physically impossible.
Adopted from Wikipedia
Beauty of nature?Labels: Beauty of Nature?
♥ a butterfly landed @
5:22:00 PM
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