MECHANISMS CONTROLLING COPULATORY 
BEHAVIOR IN WOLF SPIDERS 
(ARANEAE: LYCOSIDAE) 1 
By Jerome S. Rovner 
Department of Zoology 
Ohio University 
Athens, Ohio 45701 
Male spiders use their palps for picking up, storing, and, finally, 
transferring seminal fluid to the female’s copulatory apparatus. In 
previous papers (Rovner, in press) I described inter-generic differ- 
ences in palpal insertion patterns and examined temporal variation in 
the duration of insertion during mating in the lycosid spiders Lycosa 
rabida and Schizocosa saltatrix. Using the former species and taking 
a different perspective in the present study, I sought to determine 
some of the mechanisms involved in regulating the sequence of events 
accompanying each palpal insertion, as well as the role of the palps 
in the orientation of the male throughout mating. Experimental 
modification of one or the other partner was followed by the male’s 
performance of behaviors which did not occur during normal copula- 
tions: courtship, disorientation, tying down the female, and “pseudo- 
insertions”. Such data led to hypotheses concerned with the control 
of various elements of copulatory behavior. 
During mating, lycosid spiders maintain a position (Position II of 
Gerhardt, 1924) in which the male’s sternum is above the female’s 
carapace and the partners face in opposite directions (Fig. 1). Each 
insertion involves the male’s leaning down on one side of the female 
and scraping one palp (the one closest to that side of the female) 
against her epigynum. The male’s right palp serves the female’s right 
copulatory pore; his left palp, her left pore. 
One or more scrapes of the palp result in engagement of the em- 
bolus in the copulatory pore. The latter is accompanied by hema- 
todochal expansion, which forces the embolus into the duct leading 
to the seminal receptacle. Ejaculation of seminal fluid through the 
embolus is presumed to occur at maximum expansion of the hema- 
todocha (Gering, 1953). Subsequent collapse of the hematodocha is 
followed by disengagement of the embolus and lifting of the palp 
away from the epigynum. (For details of palpal function during 
copulation, see Gering, 1953. The hydrostatic system involved in 
hematodochal expansion, as well as in locomotion, has been studied 
recently by Wilson, 1970.) 
This study was supported in part by Ohio University Research Grant 244. 
Manuscript received by the editor , September 27 , 1971. 
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