Along the coastal sand dunes of Vancouver Island, British Columbia, seduction on the log-strewn beaches can be dangerous. A male can end up as lunch instead of lover if he doesn’t read a female’s signals correctly.
A male western black widow spider, that is.
Catherine Scott has spent the past several summers trying to untangle the nuances of courtship communication in these spiders, which are found across much of western North America. A doctoral student at the University of Toronto, she works in the laboratory of behavioral ecologist Maydianne Andrade, who has spent decades studying these spiders and their relatives. Now, Scott’s work is revealing some of the secrets of spider sex.
Dating on the Web
The black widow female is a sit-and-wait predator that builds a messy-stranded cobweb as a trap for crawling and flying insects. She stays on this web until she’s fully mature. Then she reaches out for company.
