[Rhodes22-list] Dead for Sex

[Brad Haslett]

I'm thinking super-gluing a $100 bill to the forehead would be the spider
equivilent.  Brad

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Male spiders play dead for sex: study
<http://www.breitbart.com/partner.php?source=afp>   Feb 27 09:34 AM
US/Eastern
   Advice on how to score with the ladies would probably never include the
strategy that works best for at least one species of male spider: playing
dead.

Not all male nursery web spiders looking for a little arachnid sex adopt
this technique, but those that do more than double their chances of hitting
the jackpot, according to new study in Behavioral Ecology, reported
Wednesday in the British magazine New Scientist.

In experiments designed by Trine Bilde of the University of Aaarhus in
Denmark, researchers set up date-and-mate opportunities for Pisaura
mirabilis, a species native to Europe.

All the males sought to attract partners by offering a gift of food, held in
the mouth.

But the ones that lay flat and motionless -- even if meant getting dragged
about by a female that had latched onto the victuals -- wound up in a much
better position, as it were, to engage in sexual activity.

The hapless males that tried the direct approach wound up keeping the free
meal but not getting what they were really after.

Males that played dead were also allowed to copulate longer than males that
did not, ensuring more eggs could fertilized, the researchers reported.

Playing dead is a well-known defence mechanism in nature, but this is
apparently the first time such behaviour has been observed as a strategy for
obtaining sexual favours.