PHEROMONES IN THE ANIMAL KINGDOM

Female Bola spiders do not weave webs but instead collect their freshly spun silk into a sticky ball and hang it from a vertical line attached to a single horizontal line. At night when a Bola is ready to hunt, she hangs from the horizontal line. Using her front legs, she grasps the vertical line above the ball. By pulling on this line, she can move the ball. She then begins to emit a pheromone that mimics the sex attractant of the moth. Downwind, the male moth responds to the pheromone and flies toward the waiting spider. As he comes within range, the spider swings the ball at him. If she its him, the ball sticks to the moth and he is caught. The spider descends the line, paralyzes the moth, and feeds on him at her leisure.

The female blue crab emits a pheromone that appears in her urine just before she matures. The male detects the pheromone with sense organs located on his first antennae, and he responds to its signal with an odd courtship display. He spreads his claws apart in front, he extends his walking legs, and in the rear, he raises his swimming legs and waves them from side to side over the top of his shell. Having attracted the female's attention with this antic, he then grabs her, tucks her under his body, and carries her around wherever he goes for several days. Soon she undergoes her maturity molt, and immediately afterward copulation takes place. The male continues to tote the female about for several more days. In the normal course of events, this is the single mating experience in the life of the female blue crab.

Read the CNN article, "Study Finds Proof that Humans React to Pheromones" - March 11, 1998.

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