Male wolf spiders improvise special ‘dance’ to woo mates, study finds

Female spiders look for really athletic males that can coordinate different signals into one display, scientists suspect

Male wolf spiders that engage in a complex “dance” performance when they encounter a receptive female are more successful in courtship, a new study has found.

Across the animal kingdom, creatures have evolved intricate rituals to win over mates, ranging from elaborate dances of birds-of-paradise to the geometric seafloor-sculpting of the white-spotted pufferfish.

In new research, published in the journal Biology Letters, scientists, including those form the University of Nebraska-Lincoln in the US, found that male wolf spiders (Schizocosa stridulans) encountering a receptive female would unleash an “appendage-scraping, abdomen-quivering, leg-tapping” performance.