Finding solutions to the behavior of some female spiders often eat their mates before or after intercourse, which has long attracted a lot of scientists' attention.
Researchers now still believe that male spiders are a perfect food, close to the nutritional needs of spiders, so it attracts the meat-eating spiders. But this hypothesis was dismissed soon after, according to scientists, male spiders are not really nutritious compared to other prey like crickets.
Females often eat mates after intercourse
Professor Ann Rypstra and Dr. Shawn Wilder of the University of Miami in Hamilton, Ohio conducted a study on how nutritious male spiders are and how much spiders eat fat and protein in male spiders.
The spider part is eaten (above) compared to the crickets that are eaten (below)
The results showed that a spider of Hogna helluo only eats 51% of male spider biomass, in which it eats up to 72% of cricket's biomass. It also sucks more fat from crickets than its mates because the male spider contains 5% fat, but crickets up to 20%.
"Our results show that female spiders need a lot of lipids to produce eggs, but male spiders have very little lipid in their bodies," Dr. Wilder said.
That will explain why the female spider can grab a cricket and eat it devoured, after it refuses to eat a male spider.
'I was surprised by this result because people have always thought that meat-eating spider mates are derived from the motive of nutrition sources' - Dr. Wilder said.
'Instead, our research results show that carnivorous spiders are homosexual as a last resort to fighting hunger'. That also explains why not all spiders always eat their mates.
The research results have been published in the journal Oecolegia.
