Claim:
As a mating ritual, male spiders sometimes wrap “random waste” instead of insects, hoping that female spiders won’t notice.
Judgement:
Context:
Some spider species have been observed wrapping inedible prey or plant material in silk before presenting them to a potential mate. It can be misleading to call such material ‘waste’, in the sense that it is not waste, but rather unusable waste.
Certain male spiders have been observed wrapping prey gifts in silk before offering the presents to potential female mates, hoping for a successful return. According to a claim that regularly circulates on social media platforms some guys cheat the system and pack “random trash” instead.
A post from 2022 about X (formerly Twitter) claims that the males “hope the female spiders only notice when they are busy.” Similar messages have been posted on Facebook And Reddit.
SCIENCE FACT: Male spiders often bag insects and give them to female spiders to increase their chances of mating. However, sometimes male spiders randomly pack trash, hoping the female spiders won’t notice until they’re busy. pic.twitter.com/fHAXQvLQYQ
— Upworthy Science (@upworthyscience) August 19, 2022
The statement is true. Jason Bondan entomologist and professor in the department of entomology and nematology at the University of California, Davis, said that scientists have indeed observed this behavior in spiders, and several scientific studies confirmed the phenomena to be true.
“It is not entirely clear that females always ‘don’t notice’, but in some taxa this may be the case,” Bond wrote.
The waste of one spider…
The term “waste” depends on who (or what) you ask. Scientific literature shows that male spiders have been observed wrapping inedible prey and plant parts in silk. It can be misleading to call such material ‘waste’, in the sense that it is not waste, but… especially unusable waste.
Spider scientist Sebastian Echeverri told Snopes in an email that only a few species of spiders “package food as a courtship gift for the female.”
Spiders for giving wedding gifts Involving Pisauridae And Trechaleid and typical, mating occurs when the female consumes the food gift.
“Gift giving appears to have evolved to serve non-mutually exclusive purposes. Gift giving increases the likelihood of mating in males, so they are part of the courtship itself, Echeverri told Snopes. “Additionally, food gifts can provide the female with more nutrients to make eggs.”
It’s the thought that counts?
a 2023 study discovered that ‘men can also produce worthless gifts’. Such “worthless” gifts could be prey remains or plant parts, according to a study that came to a similar conclusion years earlier, in 2020.
“In a few species, males have been seen giving a ‘worthless’ gift (leftover food, plant material, or in one case an empty silk ball),” Echeverri wrote.
The 2023 study also found that females accept both worthless and valuable gifts (the latter being edible prey) during courtship because they supposedly cannot tell the difference under silk wrapping.
But why do men choose to deceive their potential partners? Science isn’t entirely sure. It may be that a male that provides leftovers, even if they are inedible, shows that he is a good hunter with good genes. Or perhaps his lack of effort saves him valuable time and energy for other things, the paper said Research from 2020.
Scientists also theorize a ‘cheater strategy’; The man gets his cake and eats it too, so to speak. By providing leftovers, the male obtains nutrition from his meal and uses his leftovers to attract a female. In other words, as Echeverri put it, male spiders may choose to wrap up inedible material, “so as to gain the advantage” [of mating] without having to give up a food item.”
And because worthless scraps are often wrapped in more silk than edible gifts, the female takes longer to unravel. This gives the male more time to complete the deal, if you will. Study from 2017 found it.
Men can use this gift-giving “cheat” during stressful times – when things are tough, so to speak – such as when there is less food available due to environmental conditions, according to 2023 study.
But it turns out that female spiders don’t have a strong preference for nutritional gifts over crappy gifts. Research shows, in most cases, male spiders that give real gifts to potential mates are no more or less likely to contact or be cannibalized by their female counterparts. In other words, males with lousy gifts appear to have as much success in mating and survival as those who offer nutritional gifts, the researchers said. Research from 2011.
Sources:
About | Sebastian Echeverri. https://www.spiderdaynightlive.com/about/. Accessed January 25, 2024.
Albo, Maria J., Camila Pavón-Peláez, et al. “Stressful environments favor deceptive alternative mating tactics to become dominant.” BMC Biology, full. 21, no. July 1, 2023, p. 162. BioMed Centralhttps://doi.org/10.1186/s12915-023-01664-5.
Albo, Maria J., Gudrun Winther, et al. “Worthless donations: male deception and female counterplay in a wedding gift spider.” BMC Evolutionary Biology, full. 11, no. 1, November 2011, p. 329. BioMed Centralhttps://doi.org/10.1186/1471-2148-11-329.
Albo, María J. and Fernando G. Costa. “Gift-giving behavior and male mating efforts in the neotropical spider Paratrechalea Ornata (Trechaleidae).” Animal behavior, full. 79, no. 5, May 2010, pp. 1031–36. ScienceDirecthttps://doi.org/10.1016/j.anbehav.2010.01.018.
Facebook. https://www.facebook.com/groups/441333919315986/permalink/5777114465737878/. Accessed January 25, 2024.
“https://Twitter.Com/Upworthyscience/Status/1560628196500033537.” X (formerly Twitter), https://twitter.com/upworthyscience/status/1560628196500033537. Accessed January 25, 2024.
Martínez Villar, M., et al. “Lack of female preference for wedding gifts may have led to loss of the male sexual trait.” Evolutionary biology, full. 50, no. 3, September 2023, pp. 318–31. Springerlinkhttps://doi.org/10.1007/s11692-023-09606-3.
Martínez-Villar, Mauro, et al. “Empty Wedding Gifts: A Further Step in the Evolution of Deception in Spiders?” The Journal of Arachnology, full. 48, no. 2, September 2020, pp. 214–17. bioone.orghttps://doi.org/10.1636/0161-8202-48.2.214.
Terry, George M. Jason Bond | Entomology and Nematology. July 26, 2019, https://entomology.ucdavis.edu/people/jason-bond.