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The ungentle joy of spider sex
- bobbydreamer 6y agoSo I am the weird one who read this
- freeqaz 6y agoI'm with you, friend. May we rejoice in our newly attained, unusual facts!
- sgrove 6y agoIf you enjoy this sort of thing, you'll probably really enjoy "Dr Tatiana's Sex Advice to All Creation: Definitive Guide to the Evolutionary Biology of Sex" [0]. It's quite a fun framing that takes on a lot of the oddities that pop up around sexual dimorphism, mating, child care, etc. [0] https://www.amazon.com/Tatianas-Sex-Advice-All-Creation-ebook/dp/B00BFTSYBW https://www.amazon.com/Tatianas-Sex-Advice-All-Creation-eboo...
- freeqaz 6y agoThank you :)
- dropit_sphere 6y agoIt's exactly the kind of thing that should be on HN.
- roland35 6y agoI learned way more about spiders in the sci-fi book "Children of Time" by Adrian Tchaikovsky than I thought I would! The basic premise is that the evolution of spiders on a new planet is hyper-increased, and they become the dominate intelligent species on the planet. The sexual dimorphism comes into play because male spiders are the victims of sexism in spider society. They are smaller, weaker, but eventually work towards equality. That book is interesting but nightmare inducing!
- Raphmedia 6y agoOut of topic... This book is really expensive as a hardcover! I had to look around to make sure it's not a glitch. It goes for $180-$374 on amazon.com and $630-$1222. $800 on ebay.com even! Woah. I'm guessing it's out of print and extremely popular?
- mrlonglong 6y agoGet it on kindle, I have it and it's brilliant. Edit for typo
- Raphmedia 6y agoI usually try to get Sci-Fi books in hardcover (that's how I read all my first Sci-Fi and it stuck with me)... I'll make an exception for that one!
- ebg13 6y agoLikely not because of extreme popularity. Publishers almost always switch very quickly from hardcover to only printing paperback editions because the market isn't willing to pay the additional cost. It's worse for weird scifi novels because the market is small, so the hardcover run for this was probably tiny.
- markatto 6y agoThere are many SciFi titles that are extremely expensive in hardcover these days. There is a lot of amazon volatility, so I tend to use price watch sites, but some also consistently stay in the hundreds of dollars (for example, the original printing of Hyperion). I suspect that this is because the genre used to sell badly in hardcover and many SciFi fans have come into money over the last few decades, but I'd be curious to hear from somebody who understands the market better.
- NickNameNick 6y agoAmazon prices for uncommon/rare items can get wierd. There was an issue a while ago with resellers that would look for items on amazon, and create a duplicate listing with a slightly higher price. If they got an order, they could buy the item from another amazon seller, and onsell the item for a profit. This broke in a predictably amusing way when there were only a few vendors for an item, and all of them were doing the same thing - each vendor updating their price to be higher than the others, quickly spiralling up to ludicrous values.
- mrlonglong 6y agoIt's fascinating that a species of spiders perform oral sex.
- vmception 6y agoA lot of research I've read has considered spiders to be mindless automatons, which would make the widely varied conditional logic extremely hard to understand how it could be selected for by natural selection, as opposed to some level of more robust thought simply being present in the species.
- bobbylarrybobby 6y agoIf behavior is just the aggregate of individual actions, and actions are an output of (the black box that is) the brain, and the brain is an output of genes, then why shouldn't behavior be selected for?
- vmception 6y agoI agree with that, I just don't think its merely if/then logic like I had been exposed to earlier, but more calculated thought process
- shagie 6y agoI'd suggest reading up on the genus of spider Portia (which incidentally is the main "character" of the sci-fi book mentioned above) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portia_(spider) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portia_(spider) A BBC clip about the spider: https://youtu.be/ERuJiSt8pF4 https://youtu.be/ERuJiSt8pF4 - there's more to the longer clip with Portia playing with the web of another spider to get it to move out of position and other behaviors.
- bitwize 6y ago"All loves have to die; of that there's no help. My favorite way to end 'em Is the orb weaver spider's, whose pedipalp Enters the female pudendum, Then dies on the spot, his corpse there still stuck, Left for his rivals to curse it. He would rather die than not get to fuck; Personally, I reckon it's worth it!" --TISM, "Everyone Else Has Had More Sex Than Me" Spider sex is fascinatingly bizarre, but if you really want to be grossed out, look up bedbug sex. The female bedbug has no vagina analogue or other opening in which to leave sperm, so the male bedbug just kind of fucks away at her until he pierces or wears a hole in her exoskeleton and injects his sperm into that, where it floats around in her hemolymph until it finds her eggs. Female bedbugs are thus highly susceptible to coital infection, but those fuckers are nevertheless adapted for survival even despite our efforts to get rid of them.
- BigBubbleButt 6y agoMy God, I had completely forgotten about this video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ENnAa7rqtBM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ENnAa7rqtBM
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- lproven 6y agoActually came here to post that verse, and found threads * about Vernor Vinge instead, then that someone else beat me to it. Score. ----- * threads... silk... web... SWIDT?
- h2odragon 6y agoSo many great quotes. I wonder how the lifespans correlate? Those of the mentioned species I know, the females seem relatively long lived, with in some cases investment in parenting. Which leads to: Wolf Spiders. [1] These charming ladies are prolific in and around our home and are often seen carrying clusters of babies on their backs. Truly endearing. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolf_spider https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolf_spider
- xwdv 6y agoIt’s amazing how things that happen in the animal kingdom are sometimes analogous to what happens to humans. Some female spiders devour male spiders after mating with them, similarly, I have often seen male humans sucked dry and left as soulless husks after being taken for a ride by manipulative females. The asymmetry of the human dating world often leaves good men vulnerable to females simply looking for an efficient provider of resources, and when there’s nothing satisfying left to be extracted, they are cast aside for a new male richer in resources. The female is constantly looking to reach her global maxima, while males get trapped into local maximas where they often spend the rest of their life and die.
- BigBubbleButt 6y agoYou might want to reconsider demonizing half the human race. But if not, there's a community for you over at /r/redpill
- R0b0t1 6y agoWhile I don't really think the comment is appropriate through this thread, throughout human history most men did not have children so it is not entirely inappropriate. What conclusions you draw from it may be inappropriate. There's part of the old testament that focuses on giving young men advice to not being taken advantage of by society and specifically women, so the sheer length of time OP's complaints have existed is noteworthy.
- chowned 6y agoYour personal feelings about women are noted and discarded, thank you.
- BigBubbleButt 6y agoAnd slavery has been around for the length of humanity and still exists today. That doesn't mean it's appropriate. Ultimately it's subjective and a value judgment. You do you. EDIT: I shortened OP's "not entirely inappropriate" to "appropriate"
- cs702 6y agoThe stuff of nightmares, with pictures...
- the_af 6y agoThe first photo of the golden orb weaver spiders mating is awesome: awe-inspiring, and I certainly wouldn't want to be either creature, but it doesn't look nightmarish to me. Then again, I've always liked bugs.
- nehushtan 6y agoFun beetle sex story on Radiolab that includes a dramatization by a visiting crew of Broadway singers: https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/radiolab/articles/hard-knock-life https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/radiolab/articles/hard-...
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- every 6y agoI have actually watched this rite on my front porch between two jumping spiders. The large female was aggressive but a tad slow. The much smaller male rapidly circled her (counter-clockwise?) for minutes like a stopwatch. Occasionally he would jump for her back and she would rebuff him and/or try to eat him. But eventually he prevailed. I'm pretty sure I actually saw him tucking away his sperm packet by reaching underneath her. But once the deed was done they both split in opposite directions. Hardly Romeo and Juliet...
- ravenstine 6y agoJumping spiders changed my mind about spiders in general. Anyone who isn't familiar with jumping spiders should find one or watch some videos. They're unbeluevably observant, and not just reacting to movement like other arthropods. Their vision and their behavior in response to their environment is very sophisticated, which I think might be why they don't rely on website to catch prey.
- mrlonglong 6y agoDo they log onto Amazon to order their prey? (Sorry, couldn't resist!)
- vmception 6y agono no, that's why they don't order from websites
- ravenstine 6y agoba-dum tsss!
- pabs3 6y agoPeacock spiders are pretty awesome too: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peacock_spiders https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peacock_spiders
- pugworthy 6y ago
- Uptrenda 6y agoWell... that article made my skin feel like it was crawling with spiders. Interesting read though. Thanks OP.