5/13/2023 0 Comments The flesh eaters la morse![]() ![]() Sexual cannibalism is common among species with prominent sexual size dimorphism (SSD) extreme SSD likely drives this trait of sexual cannibalism in spiders. There is also evidence of sexual cannibalism in gastropods and copepods. Sexual cannibalism is common among insects, arachnids and amphipods. Females of cannibalistic species are generally hostile and unwilling to mate thus many males of these species have developed adaptive behaviors to counteract female aggression. In many species that exhibit sexual cannibalism, the female consumes the male upon detection. This behavior is believed to have evolved as a manifestation of sexual conflict, occurring when the reproductive interests of males and females differ. ![]() The adaptive foraging hypothesis, aggressive spillover hypothesis and mistaken identity hypothesis are among the proposed hypotheses to explain how sexual cannibalism evolved. Several hypotheses to explain this seemingly paradoxical behavior have been proposed. ![]() It is a trait observed in many arachnid orders and several insect orders. Sexual cannibalism is when an animal, usually the female, cannibalizes its mate prior to, during, or after copulation. The prevalence of sexual cannibalism gives several species of Latrodectus the common name "black widow spider". ![]()
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