Paternal spider
to die at the ‘little death’,
worthy sacrifice.
Mating is a dangerous game for males of many species of spider, with females often winding up with a nutritional meal to help fuel egg production. Taking their paternal responsibilities to an extreme, male dark fishing spiders spontaneously die during copulation. Females that are allowed to eat their dead mates produce a greater number of offspring, of a greater size and with an increased survivorship compared to females prevented from eating their mate or females provided with an equivalently sized cricket. It seems cannibalism isn’t all bad. Schwartz et al, 2016.