"Hi, I'm a crepuscular spider, want to mate?" Doesn't sound too enticing, does it? That's probably why male crepuscular spiders (crepuscular means "active at twilight") need to grease the wheels with a few gifts. However, any old gifts won't do: in this study, the researchers show that female crepuscular spiders prefer silk-wrapped gifts, and they will mate more with males offering these tokens. Because silk takes energy to produce, these gifts actually serve as an indication of the health of the male. But really, who doesn't like to open a gift? "A partially-eaten beetle? Aw, you shouldn't have."
Silk wrapping of nuptial gifts as visual signal for female attraction in a crepuscular spider.
"An extensive diversity of nuptial gifts is known in invertebrates, but prey wrapped in silk is a unique type of gift present in few insects and spiders. Females from spider species prefer males offering a gift accepting ...
