House Spider - Male

Description:

A closer view of the underside of the thorax of a male Parasteatoda tepidariorum. You can tell this is an adult male ready to mate from the swollen "boxing glove" appearance of his pedipalps. Mature male spiders will transfer sperm from glands on their abdomen into these and store it there for mating. There seems to be some sort of hook at their ends. During mating, the male inserts these into two openings of the epigyne on the underside of the female's abdomen and uses them like syringes to inject the sperm into the female.