THERE is such a thing as being too well-endowed – at least if you’re a cobweb spider. Male Tidarren sisyphoides boast such an enormous pair of copulatory organs that they amputate one to make moving around easier.
Male T. sisyphoides spiders weigh only about 1 per cent as much as females, and therein lies the problem: in order to fit together properly with the female during mating, the males have a pair of disproportionately huge copulatory organs, known as pedipalps. They account for roughly a fifth of the males’ total weight. Rather than lug these monstrosities around, each male tears one…
