The scientists collected 53 male spiders from the wild who were found to be carrying gifts for females. Amazingly, 70% of these males were holding worthless gifts such as prey leftovers, presumably after having eaten the prey themselves. … The researchers then brought all of these spiders (both the ones holding worthless gifts and what I like to think of as the more earnest males carrying genuine gifts) into the lab. The male spiders were then given either a real gift to give to a female spider (a big juicy housefly), a worthless gift (an insect skeleton), or no gift at all.
So how did the females react?
Females were equally likely to mate with males who carried real gifts as those who carried leftovers from their dinners. This is not surprising, given that since the gift was cleverly wrapped by the male, the female may not have been able to tell what the package contained before ‘agreeing’ to mate with her male suitor. Instead, females much preferred to mate with males in good body condition rather than skinny, underfed males. Therefore, those males that ate their gifts were actually the ‘smart’ ones (whether they knew this or not) as it was better to be in good shape having had a full meal, but courting the female with the equivalent of an empty box of chocolates than to court her looking wan but holding the equivalent of a roast dinner. The well-fed males not only had a higher chance of mating a female, but females also let them mate with them sooner and for a longer period of time.
More surprisingly, females also didn’t seem to care about whether males even carried a gift at all. They were actually as likely to mate with males without a gift as males with a gift (as long as their bodies were in good condition).
The Dish 