The Spider That Cuts Your Sex Organ During Intercourse

A female. Malabarensis. In the red box you can see the Male’s penis.

For example, getting rid of your penis. As have been described from Hubei University in China, the male of a species of spider, Nephilengys Malabarensis is automutila the penis during intercourse, leaving the appendix inserted into the female. It is not only the tip of the coupler device, called pedipalp, but the entire structure. And stay expelling sperm as the male flies.

In this species, the female is much larger than the male. In the spiders, if such females often eat the male at the end of copulation. The reason this happens is related to energy investment that each of the sexes in the breeding place. Simply put, we can understand the energy investment and the amount of food that each parent stops using itself for use in their offspring. And when the mother’s investment is much higher than that of the father, a way to balance the books is by post-coital cannibalism.

dragon-fly

Explained, it seems that the male reproductive system cercera her to survive copulation, although it has been barren, but it is not so simple. In biological terms, the function of all living things is reproduced, and therefore the male has already fulfilled its function at the end of copulation. So what good is to live, even more so being sterile?

Female N. malabarensis spider devours her mate and attacks.

The reason that male N. malabarensis emerge from its enclosure is to prevent the female to play with other males. In this species, females often mate with several individuals, thereby reducing the possibility of paternity of each male. By leaving your penis inserted into the female plug it serves and prevents other males to fertilize the female. In addition, the detached penis expels more sperm if the male is kept together.

This strategy is surprising given on arachnids. It is the first time that such behavior is found in spiders, and so far assumed that males had willingly engaged in cannibalism, as an offering to the female. What is not is new. Such strategies, which either controls the female during pregnancy to ensure that no other male copulates with her, or creates a plug to prevent this very thing, is widespread in the animal kingdom. For example, many species of dragonfly have either one or even both strategies simultaneously.