answersLogoWhite

0

Yes.

Spiders have eight legs and two more, shorter, limbs at the very fronts of their bodies that are called "pedipalps." They are used the way we use our arms. However, male spiders use their pedipalps to impregnate their mates. The male pedipalp functions like a biological syringe. The male makes a little doily-like web on the ground, discharges semen onto that felt-like silken fabric, and then inserts the tips of its pedipalps into the drop of semen. The semen is sucked into the pedipalps, and later on the male spider inserts each pedipalp into the genital opening of the female spider and the semen is forced out of his pedipalps and into her reproductive system. Therefore, the pedipalps of male spiders are very different from those of female spiders.

Male pedipalps have to be much bigger than those of female spiders. So if you see a spider with two pedipalps that are terminated by big roundish things, then that spider will be a male.

In many species of spider the males are very much smaller than the females. All they have to do is to deliver a couple of small droplets of semen to the female. They don't have to produce hundreds of eggs, guard the eggs, guard the babies for a while after they have hatched, etc. So there is no particular biological reason for male spiders to be big. In fact, if they are small enough it may be very difficult for the female to catch them before or after intercourse, and since they are so small it may not even be worth the effort to catch them to eat them. So maybe that is the reason that in lots of spider species the males are much smaller than the females.

In many spiders that have good vision because they are hunting spiders (e.g., lynx spiders, fishing spiders, wolf spiders, and jumping spiders), the males may look different from the females. Looking special helps ensure that the female will realize that this other spider is a male and not a female coming to try to kill her, and that this spider is a male of the female's own species. The male's special appearance is also involved in the elaborate dance that many species of hunting spiders use to identify themselves by species and then to "entrance" the female spider so that she will put aside thoughts of eating him and let him mate with her.

User Avatar

Wiki User

13y ago

What else can I help you with?

Related Questions

Do female and male arthrpods look different?

do female and male arthropods look different


Is a male spider bigger then a female spider?

No. In most cases, female spiders are bigger than male spiders.


Are male spiders lighter in colour compared to a female spider?

Not usually. Markings can differ between male and female spiders of the same species, however male spiders are not usually lighter in color. They are typically smaller than female spiders though.


How do male stingrays and female look different?

they look the same


Do female spiders eat the male spider?

Some species of female spiders do eat the male spiders after mating. Since spiders are intraguild predators, meaning that they eat each other, female spiders eat male spiders of the same and other species as food all the time.


Is it true that only female spiders can spin webs?

Different species vary - some spiders don't spin webs.. but it is not true that only female spiders spin webs - both male and female do - otherwise how would the male spiders catch their food?


Do some animals look different from male to female?

yes....look at humans


Do female and male lynxes look different?

Only slightly.


how do sea spiders breed?

the female eats the male and then breeds


Are female spiders more dangerous than the male?

yes but there are exceptions like the funnel web spiders in Australia , in that case the male is 5 times more dangerous than the female


Why does the stigma and the stamen look different?

it look different because it does different jobs and one is male and the other one is female


Why do female spiders kill male spiders?

Female spiders have food on their minds almost all the time. They having mating as an objective part of the time. When they have mating on their minds that does not stop them from wanting to eat. Male spiders have several ways of identifying themselves as being of the same species as the female, so that she will let them approach to mate with her. Then most of them have their own ways of keeping the female from eating them as or after they mate. Some male spiders sacrifice themselves. Some female spiders sacrifice themselves to their babies after the babies hatch.Eating the male spider after mating gives the male spider's genes a better chance of survival. So, evolutionarily speaking, it is an advantage to the male to have his progeny get a good start in life. The same is true of the female. Spiders species often live for only once season anyway, so it may be unlikely that either males or females of some species will get a second chance at reproducing.So female spiders eat male spiders because they are hungry, but also perhaps because evolution has not found it expedient in some cases to give the males a good way out. In other cases, however, the males almost always are not eaten. Some female spiders even tolerate males to continue living with them.