Spider Cannibalism - Males Eating Females

Males Eating Females

Reversing the traditional roles, species that have males consuming females are relatively unknown; the few that do show a male-biased sexual dimorphism. Examples include Allocosa brasiliensis, Evarcha culicivora, and Argyronetia aquatica. Male water spiders, Argyronetia aquatica, show a predilection for mating with larger females, while cannibalizing females smaller than themselves.

As is the case with Allocosa brasiliensis, males cull older females who are less fertile than their young counterparts.

Read more about this topic:  Spider Cannibalism

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