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Anonymous
Mating starts with the male and female locating and identifying each other using a mixture of pheromones and vibrational communication; once they have satisfied each other that they are of opposite sex and of the correct species, mating can commence.
The courtship starts with the male grasping the females pedipalps with his own; the pair then performs a "dance" called the "promenade à deux". In reality this is the male leading the female around searching for a suitable place to deposit his spermatophore. The courtship ritual can involve several other behaviours such as juddering and a cheliceral kiss, in which the male's chelicerae--clawlike mouthparts--grasp the female's in a smaller, more intimate version of the male's grasping the female's pedipalps and in some cases injecting a small amount of his venom into her pedipalp or on the edge of her cephalothorax,[4] probably as a means of pacifying the female.
When he has identified a suitable location, he deposits the spermatophore and then guides the female over it. This allows the spermatophore to enter her genital opercula, which triggers release of the sperm, thus fertilizing the female. The mating process can take from 1 to 25+ hours and depends on the ability of the male to find a suitable place to deposit his spermatophore. If mating goes on for too long, the female may eventually break off the process.
Once the mating is complete, the male and female quickly separate. The male will generally retreat quickly, most likely to avoid being cannibalized by the female, although sexual cannibalism is infrequent with scorpions.
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