![]() ![]() When they played lower-frequency sounds to the spiders in the lab and in the field, the spiders cast their nets. Once they knew the frequencies that the spiders could hear, they wanted to see if the sounds would trigger a prey-capture behavior. To test the spiders’ hearing, researchers used electrodes to record how the arachnids’ brains responded to a range of sounds. The spiders make two explosive movements, simultaneously backflipping from their dangling position and casting that net from their front legs to ensnare prey-all of which happens faster than an eyeblink. ![]() Ogre-faced spiders also employ a second, more cryptic move to catch flying prey behind them. When they see a tasty insect scuttle below, they leap downward, trapping their prey with a sticky, spider-man-style net grasped between their front four legs. For the remainder of the night, they dangle with their gigantic eyes fixated on the ground. By night, the inch-long spiders come to life, building a special web of non-sticky silk that they use to suspend themselves. By day, they are stationary and resemble sticks or palm fronds. Net-casting spiders like the ogre-faced spider combine a sit-and-wait strategy with lightning-fast attacks. Jumping spiders stalk their prey like cats, pouncing on their insect meal. Not all spiders follow a Charlotte’s Web-style strategy to get their meals. Researchers say this finding is an important step forward in understanding spidey-senses, which Hoy says are “overlooked and underestimated.” “There's an incredible world of behavioral adaptations out there among spiders, a loathed and feared group of animals,” says Ronald Hoy, who studies insect communication at Cornell University and co-authored the recent study. Though the study’s subjects were ogre-faced spiders, researchers suspect other net-casting spiders also rely on acoustic signals to hunt. They can also detect higher-frequency sounds, which researchers suspect warn the spiders of incoming predators. How the predator does that remained a mystery to scientists, until now.Ī study published today in Current Biology reveals that the spiders strike behind them with amazing accuracy after hearing lower-frequency tones. The net-casting spider relies on sight to capture prey in front of it, but can also ambush prey behind it. The ogre-faced spider’s huge eyes and nocturnal vision were thought to be its greatest hunting tool, but hearing may play a bigger role in capturing prey than previously thought.
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