Cannibalistic Mating: Why Do Some Organisms Eat Their Mating Partner?

The Evolutionary Wisdom According to the Selfish Gene Theory

This is a male peacock spider doing a mating dance. If the female doesn't like it, She will eat him! If she likes the dance and colors, she may eat him AFTER mating! What’s the nature’s evolutionary wisdom for Sexual cannibalism or Cannibalistic mating?

We need to first understand that in nature, organisms are vehicles to carry around and transfer genes (life’s continuity and replication code).

Here is an excerpt from my book (currently ranked as Hot New Release on Amazon’s Behavioral Psychology and Modern Philosophy categories) that explains why cannibalistic mating happens in nature.

Cannibalistic Mating! Selfish Genes are Adaptive, Selfish Organisms are Not

“Natural evolution favors species and gene variants that can pass on more copies. According to the Selfish Gene Theory, whenever the interests of the vehicle (organism) and replicator (selfish gene) are in conflict, the gene wins and survives. For example, in certain spider species such as black widows and redbacks, the large females will often devour the smaller males during sex and mating – hence the widow in their names. Male spiders are instinctively attracted to cannibalistic mating despite the risk of death because the expected (probabilistic) value of survival of the selfish-gene prevails over the cost to the individual organism. The male spiders are such good obedient vessels (vehicles) for the genes that they even mutilate their own genitals that would result in partially disabling female's copulatory organs, decreasing her chances of mating with other males and increasing the reproductive success of the male spider’s genes. So the male spiders mutilate and then sacrifice themselves all instinctively to keep their genes alive and selected by nature.”

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