Being a single dad may not be
a drag — it actually may help a male survive and attract females, based on
findings about a relative of spiders.
Single fatherhood is the
rarest form of parental
care in nature. Still, males are often the sole caretakers of progeny among
a number of species of daddy
longlegs, relatives of spiders also known as harvestmen. In these species,
fathers are exclusively responsible for guarding eggs that females lay on the
undersides of leaves; the males remain on the eggs nearly constantly for
months.
To see why such unusual
arrangements might last, researchers investigated a species of
harvestman, Iporangaia pustulosa, found in the rain forests of
southeastern Brazil. The researchers inspected vegetation alongside about 650
feet (200 meters) of river three times a day during four consecutive days per
month over the course of a year and tagged the elusive arachnids with dabs of
paint.
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