HN pedantry time: >discovered a remarkable new spider species... Recently evolved then? Or perhaps... "An international team of researchers has recently discovered a remarkable spider species..."
It’s a new discovery for humans.
Newly discovered spider builds spring loaded snare to catch ants
21–30 of 68 posts
Re: Newly discovered spider builds spring loaded snare to catch ants
#22The part from the paper which is so interesting is why the ant bites the trap in the first place. The paper suggests that the spider puts out a pheromone that attracts the ant and triggers the ant to aggressively bite the snare, but the pheromone only does this for the spider's target species, the green tree ant . The researchers watched three other ant species check out the snare, go "meh", and move on, unharmed, wi…
Yeah, that is pretty crazy. I wonder what it smells like? Has to be an enemy specific to that ant species right?
Re: Newly discovered spider builds spring loaded snare to catch ants
#23It is truly fascinating, I wonder how it evolved like that. Before becoming a spring as it is today how was it hunting in the past? What constraints made it need such a mechanism instead of a typical web?
There are many such mysterious mysteries in evolution. Some wasps paralyse a caterpillar of a particular species by stinging it very precisely in its nervous centres, then carries the caterpillar into the nest it previously dug out, lay its egg on the caterpillar then close the hole to never come back. This is a completely automatic, unintelligent behaviour; if you remove the paralysed caterpillar at any point in the…
The weirdest insects I've seen in real life are these ones called Burying Beetles - they have chemoreceptors that allow them to detect the odor of a dead mouse from as far away as two miles. Then a male and female fly to it, dig a big hole, strip all the fur off of it to line the hole, then drag it down in there and raise their young together. They are also unusual in that outside of bees and ants, very few insects raise their young together from infancy to adulthood.
Re: Newly discovered spider builds spring loaded snare to catch ants
#24Heh, for a second there this read like some of the Portiid adventures with Bianca and Fabian from Adrian Tchaikovsky's book "Children of time". If you find this kind of thing interesting and are a fan of sci-fi, I highly recommend the book.
Re: Newly discovered spider builds spring loaded snare to catch ants
#25I wonder why biological organisms are capable of such absurdly high accelerations. Article reminded me of cnidocytes which apparently produce anywhere between 40,000 and 5,410,000 g. Is it because of the small masses involved?
If they would prove that the trap also breaks the ant neck, saving venom, or stunning the prey for easy kill, that would be incredible. Somebody needs to include this thing in the script of a science fiction film.
> Somebody needs to include this thing in the script of a science fiction film.
"The Fly" is ready for a quick rewrite.
Re: Newly discovered spider builds spring loaded snare to catch ants
#26Earlier quoted context omitted.
Injured Himenoptera are known to send pheromones that trigger a vicious defensive response from other members of the colony. On a typical web the companion ants would do what the ants do. Go to war and flood the place surrounding the danger until eventually killing it. The spider does not have neither the stamina, nor the venom amount to deal with that. This web is designed to extract just one ant, while cutting the…
The smart spider is portia, a jumping spider. A quick search uncovers zounds of videos, articles, and scientific publications on them. They specialize is hunting spiders, changing hunting tactics based on type and number of prey. Yes, they count. They strategize. They make multi-step plans that take them out of sight of prey. And some people keep them as pets.
Yes! I learned about them reading Adrian Tchaikovsky's excellent scifi book "Children of Time".
Re: Newly discovered spider builds spring loaded snare to catch ants
#27Re: Newly discovered spider builds spring loaded snare to catch ants
#28It is truly fascinating, I wonder how it evolved like that. Before becoming a spring as it is today how was it hunting in the past? What constraints made it need such a mechanism instead of a typical web?
There are many such mysterious mysteries in evolution. Some wasps paralyse a caterpillar of a particular species by stinging it very precisely in its nervous centres, then carries the caterpillar into the nest it previously dug out, lay its egg on the caterpillar then close the hole to never come back. This is a completely automatic, unintelligent behaviour; if you remove the paralysed caterpillar at any point in the…
> lay its egg on the caterpillar
> it will close its nest without any caterpillar inside, where the larva will die out from lack of food
...wouldn't the larva be with the caterpillar? You said that's where it lays the eggs.
Re: Newly discovered spider builds spring loaded snare to catch ants
#29Of course it’s an Australian spider
Re: Newly discovered spider builds spring loaded snare to catch ants
#30this gives me children of time vibes