Video: Male Spiders Must Twerk — or Be Eaten

LiveScience

Miley Cyrus may have made “twerking” a household word, but male black widow spiders are the real masters of the rump-jiggling dance move. These arachnids twerk their abdomens to avoid getting eaten by potential mates.

The vibrations caused by the malespider‘s twerking travel along the females’ webs, alerting the females to the presence of a potential mate, a new study finds. The vibrations are very different from the staccato, sporadic movements caused by ensnared prey.

“They take a few steps and then they stop and vibrate their abdomen, and then they take a few steps and vibrate again,” study researcher Samantha Vibert, a doctoral candidate at Simon Fraser University in Canada, said of the males.

Twerking males

Spiders use their webs as extensions of their own bodies, able to sense vibrations on the threads that trigger their response to prey. But when an arachnid gentleman caller comes along, he runs the risk of being mistaken for a delicious moth and attacked.

Vibert knew from observing hobo spiders (Tegenaria agrestisi) that mating spiders perform elaborate dances. She wanted to know what was behind these complex displays.

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