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Here is a male Amaurobius ferox that has recently mated. (A user from Spiders.us submitted the original for identification.)
According to Mandy, an arachnologist on Spiders.us:
“I noticed your spider is missing a pedipalp, so he might have actually already been successful in finding a mate! Sometimes they get broken off in the process. The pedipalps are those “boxing glove-looking” appendages on either side of his face. In male spiders, the enlarged tips are used for transferring sperm into the female. Sometimes one gets stuck and they break it off so they can escape and, other times, they break it off on purpose to create a mating plug that will block other males from mating with her! Pretty interesting stuff…”
Thanks Jackie for the LolSpider submission!
