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March 07, 2007

Spider genitals

Reading The Voltage Gate, a fellow member of the Maryland Blogger Alliance, I discovered something I totally didn't realize: Spiders have genitals. Not only that, but certain male spiders use the tip of their genitals to "plug up" the females so that no other males can couple with them:

A male orb-web spider leaves behind a post-coital gift that helps to ensure that any subsequent offspring are his. He leaves the tip of his genitals in the females' sexual orifice, effectively blocking future males' efforts to inseminate the female, new research shows.
Let me rephrase this point: Male spiders engage in self-circumcision in order to put a chastity belt on the females.

Wow!

The amazing thing is that Maryland truck drivers aren't hanging fake spider genitals from their trailer hitches.