Jan 30, 2008

Trade Offs

Here is another classic example of sexual dimorphism. In this case, the male half of the Brazillian Pink Tarantula (Pamphoboteus plattyomma) gets painted in a purply magenta (or pink if you want to go with the spider's common name). That's not fair, is it ladies?

But, nature abhors imbalances almost as much as it does vacuums and idiots. So, the male forgoes the longer life span of the female in return for being fancy. Isn't that a trade-off we see so much in Hollywood?

Thanks for the spider, Jade.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

okay. i break. that's one damn pretty spider. *bows head in shame* you've finally cracked me, wombat. are you happy now?

Raging Wombat said...

Yes.