Feature:
Black widows fond of twerking
“VANCOUVER- Think Miley Cyrus, but
with a few more legs.
Black widow spiders use jittery
abdominal movements not unlike twerking…to navigate the dangerous world of
arachnid mating, according to a published study from British Columbia researchers.
Specifically, the vibrations from a
‘twerking’ male black widow tell a female perched on her web that she’s being
approached by a potential mate…
‘What the male does, it has very
subtle abdominal tremulations, so very subtle lateral movements of the abdomen
that may be comparable to the twerks, absolutely,’ Prof. Gerhard Gries of Simon
Fraser said…
‘These very subtle twerks cause
these very subtle vibrations of the web & that is what the female spider
will respond to in a very friendly, rather than aggressive, nature’.
For male spiders, mating can be a
treacherous endeavor in which an innocent attempt at courtship can end
with-& this is the scientific term- sexual cannibalism.
Cannibalism is a common danger
facing male spiders attempting to approach females, since most spiders are
predatory & extremely aggressive…
Two of Gries’ graduate students,
Samatha Vibert & Catherine Scott, set out to determine how male black
widows approach females…
The researchers used sophisticated
equipment to measure the vibrations produced by males approaching females on a
web & then compared those with the vibrations from houseflies &
crickets.
The males could be seen shaking
their abdomens, producing long, low-amplitude vibrations on the web…
While the short, percussive
vibrations of the flies & crickets triggered a predatory response from the
female black widows, the male spiders’ distinct whispers did not…
The vibrations are in addition to
other strategies male spiders use to protect themselves from aggressive
females, including cutting the threads of the females’ web to limit her
movement or attempting to mate with a moulting female.”
THE
CANADIAN PRESS
The Montreal Gazette
Jan.
18/2014
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