Reproductive System
Almost all spiders reproduce sexually. They are unusual in that they do not transfer sperm directly, for example via a penis. Instead the males transfer it to specialized pedipalps and then meander about to search for a mate. These palps are then introduced into the female's epigyne. This was first described in 1678 by Martin Lister. In 1843 it was revealed that males build a nuptial web into which they deposit a drop of semen, which is then taken up by the copulatory apparatus in the pedipalp. The structure of the copulatory apparatus varies significantly between males of different species. While the widened palpal tarsus of Filistata hibernalis (Filistatidae) only forms a kind of bulb containing the coiled blind duct, members of the genus Argiope have a highly complex structure.
Read more about this topic: Spider Anatomy
Famous quotes containing the words reproductive and/or system:
“The blind conviction that we have to do something about other peoples reproductive behaviour, and that we may have to do it whether they like it or not, derives from the assumption that the world belongs to us, who have so expertly depleted its resources, rather than to them, who have not.”
—Germaine Greer (b. 1939)
“To care for the quarrels of the past, to identify oneself passionately with a cause that became, politically speaking, a losing cause with the birth of the modern world, is to experience a kind of straining against reality, a rebellious nonconformity that, again, is rare in America, where children are instructed in the virtues of the system they live under, as though history had achieved a happy ending in American civics.”
—Mary McCarthy (19121989)