Mating behavior is particularly interesting in this species. When large populations congregate females have large numbers of males to choose to mate with and do exhibit
mate selection. Most often the male keeps it, although 8% of the time the female will keep it. Occasionally in the struggle it will be dropped amongst the litter. Once copulation is completed the male will usually retrieve the prey if it was dropped by the female and feed from it briefly. If the prey is very large the male may use it up to 2 more times in copulations. However, because of the decreased nutritional value each successive copulation will end sooner. There appears to be a distinct benefit for a male to initially find a large prey item that can be used multiple times as the time between copulation averages 7.28 minutes in this case instead of the average inter-copulatory time of 21.7 minutes if the male must find a new prey. The female's behavior after copulation is dependent on the size of nuptial gift. If the male presented a small nuptial gift the female will continue looking for a mate. However, if the nuptial gift was large she will become unreceptive to the olfactory signals sent out by males for 3 to 4 hours. During this non-receptivity period the female lays the fertilized eggs by hanging and dropping the eggs onto the forest floor. These eggs are roughly spherical with dimensions of 0.7mm by 0.65 mm and tan to orange coloured. The average number of eggs laid by the female is 3.5. Neither the male or female demonstrate parental care. The female tries to maximize reproductive success by mating again at the end of each unreceptive period. With this maximization, females lay an average of 14 eggs per day over 4 mating periods. Females feed for an average of 90 minutes per day over the course of these matings and so, when males are abundant, females rarely hunt for their own prey and rely on the nuptial gifts.
Alternate male tactics Some males have been shown to employ alternate tactics when it comes to prey capture and mating. Males may steal prey from another male instead of capturing it himself. This behavior seems to be partially dictated by the population density. If a male encounters another male with prey or a copulating pair with prey than he will attempt to steal it. However, if the male encounters a prey item before he encounters another male or copulating pair with prey then he will simply catch his own prey. This prey stealing is successful around 57% of the time. Males appear to have 2 ways of undergoing this stealing behavior. First, the stealing male simply flies up to the other male or the copulation pair and struggles to get the prey. Second, the stealing male will actually fly with force into the male or copulating pair which may act to increase their chances of prey stealing. Further, in one study 15% of the interrupted copulations the stealing male proceeded to mate with the female. In addition to simply stealing prey males can employ another tactic. Some males show female mimicking behavior in order to steal prey. These males identify another male that is trying to attract a female by sight only, not by olfaction as females do. The stealing male will land like a female would and then further mimic females by lower their wings, which females do before the nuptial gift is offered. Once this has occurred, 67% of the time the stealing male is offered the prey by the signaling male. As the stealing male samples the prey item they keep the tip of their abdomen out of reach, just as females do while they determine if the prey is good enough to allow copulation. Within about 2 minutes the signaling male tries to get the prey back from the stealing male which is successful 66% of the time. The rest of these encounters end with the stealing male flying off with the stolen prey. ==Juvenile forms==