A black widow male must be very cautious when approaching a female for the purposes of mating. If a female's web is an extension of her body, anything that touches it is considered food.

Unless the male has the proper touch. According to a new study published Jan. 16 in the journal, "Frontiers in Zoology," male spiders, significantly smaller than their female counterparts, know how to distinguish themselves from other spiders and insects deemed food by moving the web in a specific rhythm, National Geographic reported.

They don't pluck the web like an instrument; rather, they "play it" with their "hips", gyrating their "abdomen up and down, keeping the rest of their body quite still," said Samantha Vibert, an entomologist at Simon Fraser University in Canada and leader of the study.

To better understand the difference between a male black widow's mating vibrations and that of other spider species and preyed-upon insects -- and how they induced a response in the female --, scientists recorded the opening movements of all three insects/arachnids and mimicked them against a female black widow and a female hobo spider, according to Nat Geo.

Because male black widows are at such a size disadvantage, their vibration was the most specific, and described as "long-lasting and of very low amplitude, just like a constant humming," according to Vibert. The mark of hobo spiders was nearly indistinguishable from insects, however, likely because they're basically the same size as females and needn't worry as much about being eaten.

Depending on which vibration style researchers mimicked, they could influece the female to attack or permit entry.

"The vibrations were very different from those produced by prey," said Vibert of the Black Widow's song.

"The males 'twerk' to avoid triggering a female's predatory instinct, or even to turn it off," Vibert said, using a the newly crowned English word as the dance's descriptor.