By Susan Milius
Certain male spiders confront the threat of a cannibalistic female with a novel tactic: They play dead while having sex.
Nursery spiders (Pisaura mirabilis) belong to a family known for violent females that, on occasion, attack and eat males attempting courtship, notes Trine Bilde of Århus University in Denmark.
Biologists already knew that males of this species have one method for lowering the risks of romance: They show up with a gift of food. For example, the courting male might bring his intended a fly carefully wrapped in spider silk. The suitor holds the gift in front of him in his mouthparts.