I think it’s the idea of living in your home for 16 years and never leaving it except for brief forays to leap out, kill, and eat passers-by.
I still have questions, though. What about sewage? How do they clean up the spider poop that accumulates? Also, they show a spiderling … are males more prone to wandering from home? How do they avoid getting eaten when they tap on the turret door?
You meant except, right?
Reading that the males feel a sudden urge to try mating in their eighth or ninth year. Looks like most fail but there must be a few wily ones who’ve learnt to tap one side and then run around the other, as every good nine year old does.
Have a vague memory that in Australian trapdoor spiders the male gives a particular signal. Quite a lot of work has been done on these PZ (see Barbara York Main). The same problem applies to orb spiders of course. Again, my memory not being what it was fifty years ago, isn’t there a way in which males of orb species twang on a ray of the web to signal their approach? I have also watched them approach very carefully, moving one leg at a time, so as not to trigger the “food has arrived” response (remonds me of the old joke about “how do porcupines have sex?” – “very very carefully”.
Oh for a “comment edit” function!!
I like the idea of staying at home, minding my own business, and eating any men who bother me too :D