The male spider Tidarren sisyphoides is one hundredth the size of the female. But what helacks in stature, he makes up for in other ways, says Stuart Blackman. Like all male spiders, T. sisyphoides has two sets of copulatory organs, known as pedipalps, on its head.
But unlike those of his brethren, they are huge, each accounting for 10 per cent of his bodyweight. They need to be this big to match He dimensions of the female's genital opening.
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However, so much excess baggage can hinder simple tasks such as running. The male's solution is rather like removing a wobbly tooth with a length of thread and a door - only far more eye-watering.
Just before reaching sexual maturity, he wrenches off one of the enormous organs with a loop of silk, a twist of the body and a sharp tug.
Left with a single pedipalp, the spider can continue to perform as a male. Better still, he can now run faster and for longer, allowing him to travel three times farther. All the better to search for females - assuming he can see through the tears.
However life doesn't get better after he finally mates with a female as dies during insertion and stays attached to the female for more than two hours.
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Main image: Lucas Rubio, CC BY 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
