The first thing a nonexpert learns visiting the 30th annual meeting of the American Arachnological Society at Notre Dame is there are quite a few misconceptions about spiders.
For example, spiders rarely bite people. And yes, while it?s true all spiders carry venom, again, very rarely is their dose of poison lethal to human beings.
Also, spiders aren?t necessarily bad to have around because they feed on pesky mosquitoes, flies, gnats, moths and ants. Spiders, naturally, have their role to play in the bigger ecological universe. They eat insects, birds eat spiders and so on.
Okay, but the scary news ? the truth about spiders ? is more frightening than the fiction: Some of the females species are known to eat their mates immediately after copulation. The experts call it sexual cannibalism. The biologists say the soon-to-be moms need to eat their men because they require extra nourishment to deliver a couple 500-egg sacks each summer.
“Yes, it?s true, I don?t know the exact number, but in many species, the females eat the males after mating,” said Notre Dame professor Nancy Kreiter, the host of the five-day series of meetings, presentations and spider tales. “It?s a little horrific the first time you see it. I?ve reviewed student research tapes and nothing will be happening and then all of a sudden you?ll hear this loud gasp on the audio from a student.”
And believe it or not, male spiders often compete to mate with the females, knowing full well their would-be lovers are also potential predators.
?Yes, there are dances and rituals,” said Gaya Guhanarayan, an undergraduate researcher at The
University of Miami. “Sometimes two males will fight and the female will just sit there like, ?Oh, whatever.?”
The national conference brought in about 130 participants, including professors, students, museum curators and taxonomists from across the U.S. and several foreign countries. Oral and poster presentations began Sunday with titles such as “Microstructural Analysis on the Cuticular Spring Nozzle for Dragline SilkProduction in the Spider”; “Females of the Wolf Spider Driving Courtship and Copulation”; and “Watching Your Friends Get Eaten: Bystander Effects on Predation Recognition and Subsequent Survival in the Wolf Spider.”
Yes, spiders react to seeing their buddies eaten.
“To me, this is what science is all about,” said Ahmed Alkhateeb, a senior biology major from Susquehanna College. “Being passionate about something small, something everyone else takes for granted. It?s a whole other world.”
