Sexual Cannibalism: Blood LustBiology 342 Fall 2012by Ben Goggin and Kata Martin |
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Phylogeny: The question of ‘phylogeny’ or ‘evolution’ describes the evolutionary history of the behavior and how the behavior has come to be today.Though the potential benefits and costs of sexual cannibalism are most frequently studied in the explanation for the behaviors widespread occurrence among arthropods, several related traits shared among sexually cannibalizing species can begin to explain why sexual cannibalism occurs in the species that it does.Several traits are common to taxa of animals engaging in sexual cannibalism, including the following:
Comparison among the predatory species that participate in sexual cannibalism shows trends of increasing frequencies of cannibalism in mating in species that rely on predatory behavior over other foraging behaviors. For example, the highly predatory H. helluo and P. milvina strains of the wolf spider demonstrate this trend as H. helluo show cannibalism in about 30% of matings while P. milvina does so in about 1% of matings(Wilder et al 2009). These species have evolved to obtain specific food sources through adaptations like venom and body parts specialized for predation. These same adaptations are involed in sexual cannibalism, suggesting that predatory behavior might precede sexual cannibalism in evolutionary time.
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