Even Lady-Spiders Use Sexy Silk to Catch a Male's Eye

The females were placed into contained environments where they could see a male, but could not physically interact with him. The males, in turn, either had the ability to interact with female silk or not, depending on their enclosure.

The males who had access to silk were found to aggressively court the females, even when they did not have physical access to them. Interestingly, males that had no silk in their enclosure showed much less interest for the greener grass (and ladies) on the other side.

And just like many insecure young women in human society, it was the disinterested males that the females tried hardest to attract. Persons' team found that when watching disinterested males, the females produced a lot more silk, and created various kinds of silk structures - like dragline silk, cord silk, and attachment disks - that probably correspond to different kinds of communication.

But what is driving this behavior in the first place? We humans barely understand love and attraction ourselves, but it can be argued that a great deal of it has to do with chemicals. The same goes for these wolf spiders, where various female chemical cues - like pheromones on the silk - may help males find their dream girls. Without these cues, seeing a female may be a lot like seeing a supermodel for the common man.

Sure, she's pretty, but she's inaccessible, and thus there is no point in trying to woo her. When the males did have access to the silk, on the other hand, they were far more willing to play the courtship game, which in turn meant that females could be more coy about when and to whom they chose to respond.

The takeaway? Despite the fact that a great majority of the spider mating and sex-life is rather brutal and sometimes even deadly for males, it's not solely males trying to appease prospective mates. Females too, it seems, have to work to ensure they land a man, helping the otherwise difficult-to-understand world of arachnids become just a bit more relatable.

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