Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Nuptial gifts and sexual behavior in two species of spider (Araneae, Trechaleidae, Paratrechalea)

  • Original Paper
  • Published:
Naturwissenschaften Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Male delivering of a prey packed in silk as a nuptial gift is rare in spiders and restricted until now to Pisauridae. Here, we describe this behavioral pattern found in two Trechaleidae species, Paratrechalea azul Carico 2005, and Paratrechalea ornata (Mello-Leitão 1943), mainly based on field observations. We observed the following steps of sexual behavior: sperm induction, nuptial gift construction, mate searching, pre-copulatory courtship, copulation, and copulatory ending. In this group, a nuptial gift consists of a prey wrapped in silk, which appears as a white rounded shape. The male carries his nuptial gift in his chelicerae while searching for a female. When he finds a female, he shows a stereotyped courting behavior consisting of a hyperflexed posture that is also assumed by the receptive female while they face each other. The copulatory position and pattern is similar to that found in other Lycosoidea: the male mounts the female and makes a total of four palpal insertions while alternating sides. However, after each palpal insertion the male dismounts and returns to a frontal position while biting the gift. Copulatory courtship is evidenced by palpal and leg movements. The copulation ends by female initiative and she almost always retains the nuptial gift. No case of pre-copulatory or post-copulatory cannibalism has been recorded. Descriptions of nuptial gift construction by males and copulation in these species, as well as hypotheses about the origin of nuptial gift construction among spiders, are presented. These descriptions are the first records of such nuptial gift offering for Neotropical spiders and for non-Pisauridae species as well.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1
Fig. 2
Fig. 3
Fig. 4
Fig. 5

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  • Austad SN, Thornhill R (1986) Female reproductive variation in a nuptial-feeding spider, Pisaura mirabilis. Bull Br Arachnol Soc 7:48–52

    Google Scholar 

  • Bilde T, Tuni C, Elsayed R, Pekár S, Toft S (2006) Death feigning in the face of sexual cannibalism. Biol Lett 2:23–35

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Bilde T, Tuni C, Elsayed R, Pekár S, Toft S (2007) Nuptial gifts of male spiders: sensory exploitation of the female’s maternal care instinct or foraging motivation? Anim Behav 73:267–273

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bösenberg W, Strand E (1906) Japanische Spinnen. Abh Senck naturf Ges 30:93–422

    Google Scholar 

  • Bristowe WS, Locket GH (1926) The courtship of British lycosid spiders, and its probable significance. Proc Zool Soc 22:317–347

    Google Scholar 

  • Carico JE (2005) Descriptions of two new spider genera of Trechaleidae (Araneae, Lycosoidea) from South America. J Arachnol 33:797–812

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Clerck C (1757) Svenska spindlar, uti sina hufvud-slågter indelte samt under några och sextio sårskildte arter beskrefne och med illuminerade figurer uplyste. Stockholmiae, 154 pp

  • Coddington JA (2005) Phylogeny and classification. In: Ubick D, Paquin P, Cushing PE, Roth V. (eds) Spiders of North America: an identification manual. American Arachnological Society, pp 18–24

  • Costa FG, Capocasale RM (1984) Lycosa carbonelli sp. nov.: uma etoespecie simpátrida, sibilina de Lycosa thorelli (Keyserling) (Araneae, Lycosidae). J Arachnol 11:423–431

    Google Scholar 

  • Costa FG, Viera C, Francescoli G (1997) Male sexual behaviour elicited by a hybrid pheromone: a comparative study on Lycosa thorelli, Lycosa carbonelli, and their hybrid progeny (Araneae, Lycosidae). Can J Zool 75:1845–1856

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Eberhard WG (1985) Sexual selection and animal genitalia. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts

    Google Scholar 

  • Eberhard WG (1996) Female control: sexual selection by cryptic female choice. Princeton University Press, Princeton, New Jersey

    Google Scholar 

  • Fernandez-Montraveta C, Bellido JR, García JG (2001) La existencia de diferencias en el cortejo no garantiza su intervención en el aislamiento reproductor en dos arañas lobo (Lycosa, Araneae, Lycosidae). Etología 9:1–8

    Google Scholar 

  • Fernandez-Montraveta C, Schmitt A (1994) Substrate-borne vibrations produced by male Lycosa tarantula fasciiventris (Araneae, Lycosidae) during courtship and agonistic interactions. Ethology 97:81–93

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Foelix RF (1996) Biology of spiders—2nd edition. Oxford University Press, New York

    Google Scholar 

  • Griswold CE (1993) Investigations into the phylogeny of the lycosoid spiders and their kin (Arachnida, Araneae, Lycosoidea). Smithsonian Contrib Zool 539:1–39

    Google Scholar 

  • Huber BA (2005) Sexual selection research on spiders: progress and biases. Biol Rev 80:363–385

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Itakura Y (1993) The life history and nuptial feeding of a nursery web spider, Pisaura lama. Insectarium 30:88–93

    Google Scholar 

  • Itakura Y (1998) Discovery of nuptial feeding in the spider, Perenethis fascigera (Araneae, Pisauridae). Acta Arachnol 47:173–175

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Jackson RR, Pollard SD (1997) Jumping spider mating strategies: sex among cannibals in and out of webs. In: Choe JC, Crespi, BJ (eds) The evolution of mating systems in insects and arachnids. Cambridge Univ. Press, Cambridge, UK, pp 340–351

    Google Scholar 

  • Krafft B (1982) The significance and complexity of communication in spiders. In: Witt PN, Rovner JS (eds) Spider communication: mechanisms and ecological significance. Princeton University Press, Princeton, New Jersey, pp 15–66

    Google Scholar 

  • Miller GL, Stratton GE, Miller PR, Hebets E (1998) Geographical variation in male courtship behaviour and sexual isolation in wolf spiders of the genus Schizocosa. Anim Behav 56:937–951

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Peretti A, Eberhard WG, Briceño RD (2006) Copulatory dialogue: female spiders sing during copulation to influence male genitalic movements. Anim Behav 72(2):413–421 DOI 10.1016/j.anibehav.2006.01.014

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Roberts JA, Uetz GW (2004) Chemical signaling in a wolf spider: a test of ethospecies discrimination. J Chem Ecol 30:1271–1284

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Robinson MH (1982) Courtship and mating behavior in spiders. Annu Rev Entomol 27:1–20

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Roland C, Rovner JS (1983) Chemical and vibratory communication in the aquatic pisaurid spider Dolomedes triton. J Arachnol 11:77–85

    Google Scholar 

  • Sakaluk SK (2000) Sensory exploitation as an evolutionary origin to nuptial food gifts in insects. Proc R Soc Lond B 267:339–343

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Schneider JM, Lubin Y (1998) Intersexual conflict in spiders. Oikos 83:469–506

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Silva D (2003) Higher-level relationships of the spider family Ctenidae (Araneae: Ctenoidea). Bull Amer Mus Nat Hist 274:1–86

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Silva ELC, Lise AA, Buckup EH, Brescovit AD (2006) Taxonomy and new records in the Neotropical spider genus Paratrechalea (Araneae, Lycosoidea, Trechaleidae). Biociências 14:71–82

    Google Scholar 

  • Simó M, Seguí R, Pérez-Miles F (2002) The copulatory organs of the cryptic species Lycosa thorelli and Lycosa carbonelli and their hybrid progeny, with notes on their taxonomy (Araneae, Lycosidae). J Arachnol 30:140–145

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Simon E (1898) Descriptions d’arachnides nouveaux des familles des Agelenidae, Pisauridae, Lycosidae et Oxyopidae. Ann Soc ent Belg 42:1–34

    Google Scholar 

  • Stålhandske P (2001) Nuptial gift in the spider Pisaura mirabilis maintained by sexual selection. Behav Ecol 12:691–697

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Stålhandske P (2002) Nuptial gifts of male spiders function as sensory traps. Proc R Soc Lond B 269:905–908

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Stratton GE, Hebets EA, Miller PR, Miller GL (1996) Pattern and duration of copulation in wolf spiders (Araneae, Lycosidae). J Arachnol 24:186–200

    Google Scholar 

  • Thorell T (1869) On European spiders. Part I. Review of the European genera of spiders, preceded by some observations on zoological nomenclature. Nova Acta reg Soc sci Upsaliae 7:1–108

    Google Scholar 

  • Vahed K (1998) The function of nuptial feeding in insects: a review of empirical studies. Biol Rev 73:43–78

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Vahed K (2007) All that glisters is not gold: sensory bias, sexual conflict and nuptial feeding in insects and spiders. Ethology 113:105–127

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgments

We thank Fernando G. Costa, Lucas C. T. Silveira, Kari Benson, Nelle A. Carico and Anita Aisenberg for manuscript reading and suggesting important improvements in previous versions, Adriano Andrejew, Cristiano A. Iserhard, Patrick Colombo, Lucas C. T. Silveira and Clarisse Palma for field support, Alvaro Laborda, Miguel Simó, Paulo Motta, William Eberhard and João Vasconcellos-Neto for personal communications. We also thank Mark Elgar, Karim Vahed and an anonymous referee for constructive comments on earlier versions of the manuscript. The present study was supported by a grant from the National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq—Brazil), awarded to LECS. All animal collections comply with the current laws of the Brazil government, represented by IBAMA, which issued all the collections permits.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Núcleo de Aracnologia, Departamento de Genética, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, Av. Bento Gonçalves, 9500, Prédio 43323, Sala 205, CEP 91501-970, Porto Alegre/RS, Brazil

    Luiz Ernesto Costa-Schmidt & Aldo Mellender de Araújo

  2. Lynchburg College, 1501 Lakeside Drive, Lynchburg, VA, 24501, USA

    James Edwin Carico

Authors
  1. Luiz Ernesto Costa-Schmidt
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. James Edwin Carico
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Aldo Mellender de Araújo
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Luiz Ernesto Costa-Schmidt.

Appendix

Appendix

Table 1 Descriptions of the different behavioral steps observed during Paratrechalea spp. sexual behavior (as presented in order of appearance in the text), the sex involved in each step, and references that mention the same steps for other spider species
Full size table

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Costa-Schmidt, L.E., Carico, J.E. & de Araújo, A.M. Nuptial gifts and sexual behavior in two species of spider (Araneae, Trechaleidae, Paratrechalea). Naturwissenschaften 95, 731–739 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00114-008-0379-7

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Revised:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00114-008-0379-7

Keywords

Search

Navigation