''Tidarren sisyphoides'' is a

spider Spiders ( order Araneae) are air-breathing arthropods that have eight legs, chelicerae with fangs generally able to inject venom, and spinnerets that extrude silk. They are the largest order of arachnids and rank seventh in total species ...

of the family

Theridiidae Theridiidae, also known as the tangle-web spiders, cobweb spiders and comb-footed spiders, is a large family of Araneomorphae, araneomorph spiders first described by Carl Jakob Sundevall in 1833. This diverse, globally distributed family includes ...

(tangle web spiders). The male of this species is only ~1% the size of the female. At

copulation Sexual intercourse (or coitus or copulation) is a sexual activity typically involving the insertion and thrusting of the penis into the vagina for sexual pleasure or reproduction.Sexual intercourse most commonly means penile–vaginal penetrat ...

, the male dies during insertion and remains attached to the female for more than two hours. However, the female does not eat her mate. The dead male is afterwards removed from the web.

Etymology

From ''

Sisyphos In Greek mythology, Sisyphus or Sisyphos (; Ancient Greek: Σίσυφος ''Sísyphos'') was the founder and king of Ephyra (now known as Corinth). Hades punished him for cheating death twice by forcing him to roll an immense boulder up a hill ...

'', a king in Greek mythology.

Distribution

''Tidarren sisyphoides'' occurs from the southern United States to

Colombia Colombia (, ; ), officially the Republic of Colombia, is a country in South America with insular regions in North America—near Nicaragua's Caribbean coast—as well as in the Pacific Ocean. The Colombian mainland is bordered by the Car ...

and on the

West Indies The West Indies is a subregion of North America, surrounded by the North Atlantic Ocean and the Caribbean Sea that includes 13 independent island countries and 18 dependencies and other territories in three major archipelagos: the Greater A ...

References

B. Knoflach, S. P. Benjamin, 2003: Mating without Sexual Cannibalism in Tidarren sisyphoides (Araneae, Theridiidae). Journal of Arachnology 31:445-448
(PDF)

External links

Theridiidae Spiders of North America Spiders described in 1842 {{Theridiidae-stub