The Mating Game 11

The Mating Game 1-10 and other pics.
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*In this shot, it appears as if the male is about to start courtship again, but he suddenly turned away and fled. Guess he got cold feet. She wasn't being aggressive either, and she was presenting herself to him. Odd.*

Above photo was taken at work. While heading down to the basement to check on laundry, I noticed two Woodlouse Hunters on the steps. One was near the top, and the other was at the bottom. I didn’t want them hanging out there since I thought I might step on them, so I grabbed some containers and caught them. Checking them out, I noticed one was male and female. The female is larger than the male. I planned on releasing them separately on a large windowsill. I made the mistake of placing the containers right next to each other. The female and male seemed docile, so I figured I wasn’t going to run into any problems, but as soon as I took the lid off the male’s container, he was gone and climbing over into the female’s container. At first I thought they were going to fight, but it appeared as if they were starting a mating dance, so I grabbed my camera and started taking pictures.

Besides the aggressive looking mating dance, I was amazed at how tender the actual mating was, which will be seen in later pictures. He gently nudged her sideways, and he would softy caress her abdomen, and she would wave her front legs around as if in a trance while he did his thing. I had a watch on me, and they actually remained locked together for at least fifteen minutes. I didn’t think mating would last that long for a spider. The female eventually flipped over and started walking away with him still attached. That was funny watching him get dragged around. When they broke apart, the male bolted to the opposite end of the container and began grooming his pedipalp. The female trailed after him and began waving her front legs in front of his face. It seemed as if she wanted to go for round 2. She didn’t appear aggressive, and she wasn’t trying to kill/eat him, which she easily could have done. Surprisingly, the male didn’t seem interested. He kept trying to back away from her, and she continued to follow him around. Maybe he needed more recovery time. XD He ended up crawling out of the container and onto the windowsill, disappearing into a crack. The female then trailed after him and disappeared down the same crack. I guess she really wanted another round.