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Female black widow spiders start eating their partner in the middle of sperm transfer during copulation, a new study shows.  Researchers in Canada have described the disturbing mating behaviour of a black widow spider species endemic to South America, called Latrodectus mirabilis.  Cannibalism between the two sexes is initiated by females 'through leg grasping and piercing during mating', they reveal from lab observations. Overall, 70 per cent of females cannibalised their first mate, they observed, but this number jumped to 85 per cent if the female had mated previously.  The freshly dec...

Courageous mantis males wrestle with their female mate to avoid being eaten, a new study reveals.  New Zealand researchers looked at the mating behaviours of the highly cannibalistic springbok mantis (Miomantis caffra), a species of praying mantis. Praying mantises have a reputation for cannibalism, because females often eat males before they get a chance to mate.  But in this particular species, the male and female wrestle in a 'violent struggle' before mating, as each partner tries to be the first to grasp hold of the other with its front legs. If the female wins, it spells almost certai...