Chapter 14 - Communication and Reproductive Biology of Tarantulas

FERRETTI NELSON

New World Tarantulas : Taxonomy, Biogeography and Evolutionary Biology of Theraphosidae

Springer

Lugar: Berlin; Año: 2020; p. 389 - 410

Theraphosidae spiders (commonly known as tarantulas) comprise some of the largest known spiders. It is the most diverse family among Mygalomorphae and Theraphosinae, endemic to the Neotropics, is the richest subfamily. However, the knowledge on some aspects of their reproductive biology is still unknown. Usually, the sexual behavior of tarantulas has been considered as ?simple?, that is, males just walk searching for females and when they randomly find one, the mating should occur. This point of view is changing as the number of studies has grown during the last 20 years, suggesting that the sexual behavior of Theraphosidae is far from simple. Such complexity may be represented by specific searching and courtship behavior of males and active roles of females, leading to an intricate intersexual communication before mating, the occurrence of male copulatory and complex patterns of palpal insertions. In this way, this chapter describes the ways of communication of tarantulas mainly during the sexual encounters. The patterns of courtship and copulation of representatives of most subfamilies will be described based on a bibliographic review. Finally, general strategies of reproductive biology of tarantulas and topics for future research will be discussed.