- In this episode, you're about to meet one powerful female
who knows exactly what she wants.
She can be 10 times bigger
and 500 times heavier than the males in her life.
So they have to step up to the plate-- or pay the price.
REESE: Deep in the jungles of Taiwan
live female giant golden orb-weaver spiders--
among the biggest web building spiders on the planet.
With a leg-span of almost eight inches and silk like kevlar,
she's a fearsome predator,
killing anything that enters her web.
But she must also find love in this deadly trap.
And with her suitors just a fraction of her size,
she calls all the shots
in this dangerous liaison.
Hidden in the undergrowth, this female giant golden orb-weaver
is undergoing an extraordinary transformation.
During the night, her thorax has split open
and she's pulling herself out of her old skin.
She must do this in order to grow and finally become sexually mature.
These fierce queens usually live just one year.
And now in her new skin, she has only weeks left to breed.
But first, she must satisfy her other appetite--
to feed.
Using seven different silk glands,
she spins a giant orb-shaped web
that can be over three feet wide.
Her silk is one of the strongest natural fibers in the world,
and in just 24 hours, she can produce 260 feet of it
setting a deadly trap.
Her bite paralyzes her prey...
before she wraps it in a shroud of silk to enjoy later.
She may eat up to 50 insects a day.
But her web isn't just a larder.
Having squeezed out of her adolescent skin,
and eaten her fill...
her body is releasing powerful, "over here, boys" pheromones.
And these chemical signals are now all over her web
advertising a new virgin on the scene.
These are her suitors.
She maybe one of the biggest web building spiders in the world,
but they are tiny.
She can be 500 times heavier than them
making this one of the most extreme sexual size differences in nature.
Drawn in by her pheromones, they line up for a date--
but many won't make it.
Hairs all over her body allow her to sense the slightest movement on the web...
so these guys can't put a foot wrong.
This male plucks and pulls at her silks to signal he is not food.
If he gets it right, she'll let him approach--
if not, he'll be dinner.
A warning shot stops him in his tracks.
When you play this queen's game, you win...
or you die.
Another male tries his luck.
He's successfully run the gauntlet...
and he hasn't sparked her displeasure...
yet.
But if she's going to let him mate with her,
she wants to be wooed.
He takes a huge risk
and attempts to relax her with a massage.
Has his tapping and touching done enough to impress her?
Finally, having reached the spot
the male drums on her belly with his pedipalps.
These needle-like tubes carry his sperm...
and he quickly deposits it deep inside.
But as he pulls out, the tip tears off.
Unfortunate, yes, but it's worth it.
He thinks his detached pedipalp has plugged her duct
stopping other males from mating with her...
and giving his sperm the best chance of success--
but he's wrong.
This is a sexual arms race,
and this awesome female is the one in control.
Thanks to her gigantic size,
her tiny mate's pedipalp isn't big enough to form a lasting plug.
And what's more,
in a stroke of evolutionary genius, she has multiple reproductive tracts--
meaning she can mate again...
and again...
and again.
In fact, thanks to this adaptation,
female golden orb-weavers have been known to mate with numerous different males...
leaving countless eunuchs in their wake.
And when it comes to her offspring,
many mates means diverse kids,
and a better chance some will survive.
At a year old, this female's life is coming to an end.
She's hidden 2000 eggs in a ball of silk on the forest floor,
and now, having fulfilled her purpose to breed,
she will die.
Her reign is over,
but she's leaving behind future fierce queens.
That is one seriously impressive lady.
She exerted her choice, she chose who to mate with,
she chose how many,
and the ones she didn't like--
she had for dinner.