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1.0)","TemplateUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20170817153358/http://ichef.bbci.co.uk/wwfeatures/$recipe/images/live/p0/55/9x/p0559x5w.jpg","Title":"Pirate_Spider_Anterior_view-Christopher-Johnson-Insects-Unlocked-CCby10.jpg","CreationDateTime":"0001-01-01T00:00:00Z","Entity":"","Guid":"","Id":"p0559x5w","ModifiedDateTime":"0001-01-01T00:00:00Z","Project":"","Slug":""},"Metadata":{"CreationDateTime":"0001-01-01T00:00:00Z","Entity":"","Guid":"","Id":"p0559x5w","ModifiedDateTime":"0001-01-01T00:00:00Z","Project":"","Slug":""},"Urn":"urn:pubstack:jative:image:p0559x5w","_id":"599483d1e3b95bad1fb53605"},{"Content":{"FileSizeBytes":490232,"MimeType":"image/jpeg","SourceHeight":1080,"SourceUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20170817153358/https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/live-galileo-interface-mt-resources-imagebucket-1a92e5tj3b5d6/p0/55/9x/p0559x42.jpg","SourceWidth":1920,"SynopsisLong":"A furrow spider (Larioniodes cornutus) on its web (Credit: Nick Upton/naturepl.com)","SynopsisMedium":"A furrow spider (Larioniodes cornutus) on its web (Credit: Nick Upton/naturepl.com)","SynopsisShort":"A furrow spider (Larioniodes cornutus) on its web (Credit: Nick Upton/naturepl.com)","TemplateUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20170817153358/http://ichef.bbci.co.uk/wwfeatures/$recipe/images/live/p0/55/9x/p0559x42.jpg","Title":"01528125-Female-Furrow-orb-weaver-Foliate-spider-Larioniodes-cornutus-Nick-Upton-NPL.jpg","CreationDateTime":"0001-01-01T00:00:00Z","Entity":"","Guid":"","Id":"p0559x42","ModifiedDateTime":"0001-01-01T00:00:00Z","Project":"","Slug":""},"Metadata":{"CreationDateTime":"0001-01-01T00:00:00Z","Entity":"","Guid":"","Id":"p0559x42","ModifiedDateTime":"0001-01-01T00:00:00Z","Project":"","Slug":""},"Urn":"urn:pubstack:jative:image:p0559x42","_id":"599483d3e3b95bad1fb53608"}],"AssetSelect":"","AssetVideoIb2":null,"AssetVideoMps":null,"Author":[{"Content":{"AssetImage":null,"Description":"","Email":[],"Links":null,"Name":"Zoe Cormier","PrimaryVertical":"wwearth","CreationDateTime":"2017-06-08T14:04:53.592101Z","Entity":"author","Guid":"c5bb4e62-46c2-40f5-b222-e15843e116cd","Id":"wwearth/author/zoe-cormier","ModifiedDateTime":"2017-06-08T14:04:53.592101Z","Project":"wwearth","Slug":"zoe-cormier"},"Metadata":{"CreationDateTime":"2017-06-08T14:04:53.592101Z","Entity":"author","Guid":"c5bb4e62-46c2-40f5-b222-e15843e116cd","Id":"wwearth/author/zoe-cormier","ModifiedDateTime":"2017-06-08T14:04:53.592101Z","Project":"wwearth","Slug":"zoe-cormier"},"Urn":"urn:pubstack:jative:author:wwearth/author/zoe-cormier","_id":"5981d1c9e3b95bad1fa996f8"}],"BodyHtml":"<p>Build a web, catch a fly, wrap the fly in silk, then devour at leisure. This hunting strategy has proven so effective that orb-weaving spiders are one of the most successful groups of animals. They are found in almost every corner of the world and there are more than 3,000 species.</p><p>Making a web is a fairly sophisticated ploy. As well as multiple forms of silk and glue, the spider needs to perform a sequence of precise manoeuvres.</p><p>But why bother building your own web, when you can just invade somebody else's and devour the architect?</p><p>A clandestine group of spiders known as \"pirates\" have adopted this nefarious method of nabbing their prey. Their hunting strategies are among the most remarkable in the animal kingdom.</p><p>{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p0559x5w\"}}</p><p>Pirate spiders are members of <strong><a href=\"http://eol.org/pages/8819/overview\">the spider group</a></strong> that includes all the \"orb weavers\" – those that make the prototypical, circular webs we are all familiar with – but they do not make webs.</p><p>In fact, they have lost the ability. They can still produce silk, which they use to build egg sacs and wrap prey. But they are anatomically incapable of spinning a web. The number of silk \"spigots\" on their spinnerets is dramatically small compared to their relatives.</p><p>Instead, they invade the webs of other spiders, in a bid to lure and then kill the hapless architect. Gently, they pluck the strings of the web, enticing the host to approach.</p><p>Once the host spider has ventured close enough, the pirate makes its move.</p><p>First, it encloses its duped prey within its two enormous front legs. These are fringed with massive spines, called \"macrosetae\", which they use to trap the host within a prison-like basket.</p><p>Then, the final move: the pirate bites its prey and uses its fangs to inject a powerful venom that instantly immobilises it.</p><p>It is a powerfully effective hunting technique.</p><p>\"It can be riveting to watch a pirate stealthily wandering while waving its long, first pair of legs to narrow in on the location of the other spider,\" says <strong><a href=\"http://www.unh.edu/research/staff-directory/townley-mark\">Mark Townley</a></strong> of the University of New Hampshire. \"Despite many hours spent feeding pirates for our studies on spinnerets, I never became jaded by the sight of them searching for and attacking prey. It was always a marvel to watch. They can wield that first pair of legs so delicately that I've seen them touch prey spiders so lightly without them reacting in any way, not seeming to even notice.\"</p><p>But we do not yet fully understand how the pirate's strategy works.</p><p>{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p0559x42\"}}</p><p>In particular, it is not clear why the pirate spiders pluck the strings of the host spider's web.</p><p>It has long been assumed that the plucking mimics the vibrations caused by an ensnared insect. Hence the Latin name for pirate spiders: <a href=\"http://eol.org/pages/210/overview\">Mimetidae</a>, or \"imitator\".</p><p>However, not all entomologists agree that this is what the pirate spiders are doing.</p><p>\"The behaviour of resident spiders towards pirate spiders and their own prey is quite different, as are the vibrations in the web caused by these two sources,\" says <strong><a href=\"http://www.csub.edu/~ckloock/\">Carl Kloock</a></strong> of California State University Bakersfield.</p><p>He has an alternative suggestion. \"It seems to me most likely that pirate spiders are mimicking the vibrations of web-invading spiders of the same species, and possibly spiders of different species,\" says Kloock. \"A spider on its web needs to defend its web – a valuable resource – from other spiders, who may try to take over the web to avoid the cost of building their own web, or simply try to steal prey from the web.\"</p><p>\"These encounters follow a pretty simple pattern, where the spiders signal at one another, then slowly approach each other, usually until the smaller spider gives up and flees the web.</p><p>\"I think what the pirate spiders are doing is basically sending a deceptive signal representing themselves as small web invaders that refuse to flee, drawing the resident closer and closer until they are within attack range,\" Kloock adds. </p><p>Then there is the matter of pirate spider venom, which has evolved to be extremely toxic towards other spiders, including members of their own species, but not towards other animals.</p><p>\"Once another spider has been bitten it ceases to move, whereas fruit flies may struggle for several minutes,\" says <strong><a href=\"https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Dan_Mott\">Daniel Mott</a> </strong>of Texas A&M International University. \"Their toxins appear to be very specific to other spiders.\"</p><p>Why, and how, could such a strange hunting strategy evolve?</p><p>The first problem is that the prey spiders are also predators, equipped with fangs and venom. This means they are more dangerous than, say, beetles or flies, and also less abundant.</p><p>Secondly, pirate spiders are specialist predators. While they do sometimes feast on other prey, their main source of food is always spiders. By comparison, most orb-weaving spiders are generalist predators, eating whatever wanders into their web.</p><p>In fact, pirates are not even capable of capturing other spiders without the web to stand on.</p><p>\"In the lab, if you put an orb weaver into a jar but don't allow it to spin a web, the pirate spider will not attack it,\" says <strong><a href=\"https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Danilo_Harms\">Danilo Harms</a></strong> of the University of Hamburg in Germany. \"It needs a web in order to capture another spider.\"</p><p>Somehow, the ancestors of pirate spiders both lost the ability to weave their own webs, and became predators of other spiders to boot.</p><p>{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p0559wsf\"}}</p><p>Harms says the most plausible explanation is that it began with thievery. Pirate spiders' ancestors may have started invading the webs of other spiders, in order to steal the insects that the host had painstakingly trapped, poisoned and stored.</p><p>This filching behaviour has a colourful name: \"kleptoparasitism\".</p><p>Some of the proto-pirates could have then taken this tactic to the next level, by preying on the host spiders themselves. Over time, they would then have become increasingly specialised for capturing other spiders: evolving unusually long front legs, sophisticated web-plucking behaviours, and spider-specific venom.</p><p>This idea has been dubbed the \"kleptoparasitism-origin hypothesis\".</p><p>Whatever the reason for their quirky behaviour, pirate spiders are highly successful. Scientists have formally described more than 160 species, and they are found on every continent except Antarctica.</p><p>{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p0559wyk\"}}</p><p>\"We know a little bit about the biology of a tiny fraction of pirate spiders, but for most of the species we know literally nothing about their life history and behaviour,\" says <a href=\"https://scholar.google.co.uk/citations?user=fJnwKXsAAAAJ&hl=en\">Gustavo Hormiga</a> of George Washington University. \"For example, virtually nothing is known about the biology of the beautifully bizarre South American tropical pirate spiders of the genus <em>Gelanor</em>.\"</p><p>In this genus, the males' pedipalps – modified legs, which they use for inseminating females – are twice the length of the male's body. It may be that this allows them to inseminate females from a distance. \"In all other spiders, copulation requires that both partners are close to each other,\" says Hormiga. Mating at a distance would be a useful precaution, as pirate spiders are aggressive, possess potent venom, and are primed to prey on other arachnids, including their own kind.</p><p>But they also have a gentler side.</p><p>In <a href=\"http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/cla.12174\">a study</a> published in November 2016 in the journal <em>Cladistics</em>, Hormiga and his student <strong><a href=\"https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Ligia_Benavides_Silva\">Ligia Benavides</a> </strong>described five new species. Their study also featured the first report of female pirate spiders caring for their young.</p><p>Maternal care is relatively common in spiders. Some merely regurgitate prey for their young, while others go as far as allowing their spiderlings to feast upon their corpse. But maternal care had never been seen in the seemingly \"nasty\" pirate spiders.</p><p>\"In the field, we observed females of <em>Mimetus</em>, <em>Anansi</em> and <em>Ero</em> taking care of eggs and spiderlings. Pirates can be good mothers,\" says Benavides. \"In some instances, females had their eggs distributed evenly in a small web on the underside of a leaf. But if I moved a web or touched the spider, she would gather all the eggs or spiderlings quickly, create a ball with them, and carry them away in order to protect them.\"</p><p>Pirate spiders are clearly a tale unto themselves. However, their habit of imitating prey in order to devour another spider – an act known as \"aggressive mimicry\" – is not unique to them. It has evolved in arachnids independently at least twice before.</p><p>{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p0559wn0\"}}</p><p>There is a genus of jumping spiders known as <em><a href=\"http://eol.org/pages/114428/overview\">Portia</a></em>. These spiders also mimic prey, pluck the webs of unlucky host spiders, and devour them.</p><p>Like other jumping spiders, <em>Portia</em> spiders have enormous eyes and mostly rely on vision to seek out their prey. In contrast, pirates seem to rely more on their sense of touch. In the lab, <a href=\"http://www.jstor.org/stable/3705341\">covering their eyes with paint</a> does little to hinder their attacks on other spiders.</p><p>Pirates and <em>Portia</em> spiders are fairly recent evolutionary developments. However, \"pelican spiders\" also feast on other arachnids – and they are so ancient, they pre-date the evolution of winged insects.</p><p>Pelican spiders owe their nickname to their phenomenally large jaws (technically \"chelicerae\") and elongated necks. Formally known as <a href=\"http://eol.org/pages/8818/overview\">Archaeidae</a>, they are also sometimes called \"assassin spiders\".</p><p>With one chelicera they spear their prey. With the other, they inject the dangling, impaled spider with venom.</p><p>Pelican spiders have always preyed on other spiders – unlike the mimetids, which evolved from web-spinning spiders. They were first discovered from fossilised specimens in 1854, according to Harms, before living specimens were found in Madagascar in 1881.</p><p>\"So, if you are older than the radiation of insects, what could you eat? Potentially other spiders,\" says Harms. \"That's why they have such strange morphology.\"</p><p>Strange as it may seem, for some spiders feasting on the flesh of their spidery cousins is a great way to make a living.</p><p><em>Never miss a moment. Sign-up now for the <a href=\"http://pages.s6.exacttarget.com/page.aspx?QS=773ed3059447707dc886c515d1ff5a33ac4c04337acad3b65cdf6bea5f69f255\">BBC Earth newsletter</a>.</em></p>","BusinessUnit":"worldwide","CalloutBody":"","CalloutPosition":"","CalloutSubtitle":"","CalloutTitle":"","Campaign":null,"Collection":[{"Content":{"AssetImage":[{"Content":{"FileSizeBytes":3111294,"MimeType":"image/jpeg","SourceHeight":2647,"SourceUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20170817153358/http://deltaorigin.bbc.co.uk/images/live/p0/26/59/p02659py.jpg","SourceWidth":4707,"SynopsisLong":"Under x-ray, a barn owl looks the same as a buzzard (credit: Arie van ’t Riet/ SPL)","SynopsisMedium":"Under x-ray, a barn owl looks the same as a buzzard (credit: Arie van ’t Riet/ SPL)","SynopsisShort":"Under x-ray, a barn owl looks the same as a buzzard (credit: Arie van ’t Riet/ SPL)","TemplateUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20170817153358/http://ichef.bbci.co.uk/wwfeatures/$recipe/images/live/p0/26/59/p02659py.jpg","Title":"Crop Barn_owl.jpg","CreationDateTime":"0001-01-01T00:00:00Z","Entity":"","Guid":"","Id":"p02659py","ModifiedDateTime":"0001-01-01T00:00:00Z","Project":"","Slug":""},"Metadata":{"CreationDateTime":"0001-01-01T00:00:00Z","Entity":"","Guid":"","Id":"p02659py","ModifiedDateTime":"0001-01-01T00:00:00Z","Project":"","Slug":""},"Urn":"urn:pubstack:jative:image:p02659py","_id":"5995a478e3b95bad1fb5ccaa"}],"Campaign":null,"CollectionOverrides":null,"CollectionType":"column","Description":"Some things in nature can be a little strange","Name":"Weird","Partner":null,"PrimaryVertical":"wwearth","Title":"Weird","CreationDateTime":"2016-05-04T13:45:56.400024Z","Entity":"collection","Guid":"c5f77fbc-b7fa-4d29-afa4-0ced88986fb1","Id":"wwearth/column/weird","ModifiedDateTime":"2016-05-04T13:45:56.400024Z","Project":"wwearth","Slug":"column/weird"},"Metadata":{"CreationDateTime":"2016-05-04T13:45:56.400024Z","Entity":"collection","Guid":"c5f77fbc-b7fa-4d29-afa4-0ced88986fb1","Id":"wwearth/column/weird","ModifiedDateTime":"2016-05-04T13:45:56.400024Z","Project":"wwearth","Slug":"column/weird"},"Urn":"urn:pubstack:jative:collection:wwearth/column/weird","_id":"5981d1cce3b95bad1fa99aaf"}],"DisableAdverts":false,"DisplayDate":"2017-06-14T07:00:00Z","Geolocation":null,"HeadlineLong":"'Pirate spiders' make a living by preying on other spiders","HeadlineShort":"The spiders that hunt other spiders","HideRelated":false,"Horizontal":null,"Intro":"While they belong to the group that includes all the orb-weaving spiders, pirate spiders cannot weave webs of their own","IsSyndicated":true,"Latitude":"","Location":null,"Longitude":"","Option":[{"Content":{"Description":"Apple News Publish: Select to publish, remove to unpublish. 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Dri)","SynopsisMedium":"A tarantula (Grammostola quirogai) eats an Almaden ground snake (Erythrolamprus almadensis) (Credit: Gabriela Franzoi Dri)","SynopsisShort":"A tarantula eats an Almaden ground snake (Credit: Gabriela Franzoi Dri)","TemplateUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20170817153358/http://ichef.bbci.co.uk/wwfeatures/$recipe/images/live/p0/4p/4s/p04p4s8s.jpg","Title":"DSCN3072-Grammostola_quirogai-tarantula-Erythrolamprus_almadensis-snake-Gabriela_Franzoi_Dri.jpg"},"Metadata":{"CreationDateTime":"0001-01-01T00:00:00Z","Entity":"","Guid":"","Id":"p04p4s8s","ModifiedDateTime":"0001-01-01T00:00:00Z","Project":"","Slug":""},"Urn":"urn:pubstack:jative:image:p04p4s8s","_id":"59939d48e3b95bad1fb4bbc8"},{"Content":{"FileSizeBytes":1835951,"MimeType":"image/jpeg","SourceHeight":1080,"SourceUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20170817153358/https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/live-galileo-interface-mt-resources-imagebucket-1a92e5tj3b5d6/p0/4p/4z/p04p4zyb.jpg","SourceWidth":1920,"SynopsisLong":"A beetle (Pterostichus niger) feeds on a hibernating newt (Credit: R. Bernard/J. Samolag)","SynopsisMedium":"A beetle (Pterostichus niger) feeds on a hibernating newt (Credit: R. Bernard/J. Samolag)","SynopsisShort":"A beetle (Pterostichus niger) feeds on a hibernating newt (Credit: R. Bernard/J. Samolag)","TemplateUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20170817153358/http://ichef.bbci.co.uk/wwfeatures/$recipe/images/live/p0/4p/4z/p04p4zyb.jpg","Title":"Pterostichus_niger-carabid&caudate-R_Bernard-J_Samolag.jpg"},"Metadata":{"CreationDateTime":"0001-01-01T00:00:00Z","Entity":"","Guid":"","Id":"p04p4zyb","ModifiedDateTime":"0001-01-01T00:00:00Z","Project":"","Slug":""},"Urn":"urn:pubstack:jative:image:p04p4zyb","_id":"59939d41e3b95bad1fb4bbbb"},{"Content":{"FileSizeBytes":2382756,"MimeType":"image/jpeg","SourceHeight":1080,"SourceUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20170817153358/https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/live-galileo-interface-mt-resources-imagebucket-1a92e5tj3b5d6/p0/4p/4t/p04p4tt2.jpg","SourceWidth":1920,"SynopsisLong":"A giant fishing spider (Ancylometes rufus) eats an interior treefrog (Dendropsophus melanargyreus) (Credit: Mario Moura)","SynopsisMedium":"A giant fishing spider (Ancylometes rufus) eats an interior treefrog (Dendropsophus melanargyreus) (Credit: Mario Moura)","SynopsisShort":"A giant fishing spider (Ancylometes rufus) eats a tree frog (Credit: Mario Moura)","TemplateUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20170817153358/http://ichef.bbci.co.uk/wwfeatures/$recipe/images/live/p0/4p/4t/p04p4tt2.jpg","Title":"giant-fishing-spider-(Ancylometes-rufus)-eats-tree-frog-(Dendropsophus-melanargyreus)-2--Mario-Moura.jpg"},"Metadata":{"CreationDateTime":"0001-01-01T00:00:00Z","Entity":"","Guid":"","Id":"p04p4tt2","ModifiedDateTime":"0001-01-01T00:00:00Z","Project":"","Slug":""},"Urn":"urn:pubstack:jative:image:p04p4tt2","_id":"59939d41e3b95bad1fb4bbbc"},{"Content":{"FileSizeBytes":1069084,"MimeType":"image/jpeg","SourceHeight":1080,"SourceUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20170817153358/https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/live-galileo-interface-mt-resources-imagebucket-1a92e5tj3b5d6/p0/4p/4r/p04p4r59.jpg","SourceWidth":1920,"SynopsisLong":"A spider (Argiope savignyi) feeding on a proboscis bat (Rhynchonycteris naso) (Credit: M. Knoernschild)","SynopsisMedium":"A spider (Argiope savignyi) feeding on a proboscis bat (Rhynchonycteris naso) (Credit: M. Knoernschild)","SynopsisShort":"A spider (Argiope savignyi) feeding on a proboscis bat (Credit: M. Knoernschild)","TemplateUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20170817153358/http://ichef.bbci.co.uk/wwfeatures/$recipe/images/live/p0/4p/4r/p04p4r59.jpg","Title":"A.-savignyi-spider-feeding-on-a-R.-naso-bat-(M.jpg"},"Metadata":{"CreationDateTime":"0001-01-01T00:00:00Z","Entity":"","Guid":"","Id":"p04p4r59","ModifiedDateTime":"0001-01-01T00:00:00Z","Project":"","Slug":""},"Urn":"urn:pubstack:jative:image:p04p4r59","_id":"59939d47e3b95bad1fb4bbc6"}],"AssetSelect":"","AssetVideoIb2":null,"AssetVideoMps":null,"Author":[{"Content":{"AssetImage":null,"Description":"","Email":[],"Links":null,"Name":"Adrian Barnett","PrimaryVertical":"wwearth"},"Metadata":{"CreationDateTime":"2017-01-18T16:39:03.074292Z","Entity":"author","Guid":"e4f2b7a5-a579-4923-b918-7a36e00a390d","Id":"wwearth/author/adrian-barnett","ModifiedDateTime":"2017-01-18T16:39:03.074292Z","Project":"wwearth","Slug":"adrian-barnett"},"Urn":"urn:pubstack:jative:author:wwearth/author/adrian-barnett","_id":"5981d1c9e3b95bad1fa99671"}],"BodyHtml":"<p>You have probably seen the <a href=\"https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2016/oct/24/australia-giant-spider-mouse-carry-horrifying-impressive\" target=\"_blank\">viral video</a> of an Australian huntsman spider dragging a mouse up the side of a fridge. Well, we can top that.</p><p>The huntsman footage is undoubtedly remarkable. The spider is displaying amazing strength and extraordinary gripping power: the surface of that fridge is really smooth, hardly conducive to easy climbing.</p><p>But in one key respect, it is trivial: the spider probably did not kill the mouse. The mouse's stiff tail and saggy belly are both clues that it had been dead for a while. So what the video showed was, in fact, nothing more than a rather impressive feat of heavy-duty scavenging.</p><p>However, look deeper into the animal kingdom and there are <a href=\"http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1469-185X.1982.tb00363.x\">plenty of examples</a> of \"creepy-crawlies\" like spiders subduing and killing animals far larger than themselves.</p><p>For instance, in <a href=\"http://www.biotaxa.org/hn/article/view/23156\">a paper published in December 2016</a> researchers described a dramatic incident in Brazil. A tarantula (<em>Grammostola quirogai</em>) was found eating a snake that it had apparently subdued and killed. The snake, an <a href=\"http://eol.org/pages/42636600/overview\">Almaden ground snake</a>, was 15in (39cm) long.</p><p>{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p04p4s8s\"}}</p><p>This shudder-inducing behaviour is a lot more common than you might think.</p><p>Spiders and insects are fundamentally different to us because they do not have backbones: they are \"invertebrates\". We, along with dogs, eagles, frogs and fish, are vertebrates – animals with backbones.</p><blockquote><p> Dragonfly larvae are major aquatic predators that often eat tadpoles </p></blockquote><p>Vertebrates can grow far larger than invertebrates. Outside of B movies, there are no insects that can remotely rival an elephant for size. So we tend to think of vertebrates eating invertebrates – birds catching flies, chimpanzees eating termites, and anteaters doing the obvious – but not the other way around.</p><p>The idea of an invertebrate eating a vertebrate often triggers a shiver of horror, even if you do not know the technical words to describe it. Think of the giant spider Shelob in <a href=\"http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0167260/\"><em>The Return of the King</em></a>, Aragog in <em>Harry Potter</em>, or even just the name \"<a href=\"http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20160314-the-worlds-largest-spider-is-the-size-of-a-dinner-plate\">Goliath bird-eating spider</a>\". It all feels rather spooky, and somehow against the natural order of things.</p><p>But nature neither knows nor cares about our preconceptions. There are plenty of large, fast and (often) highly venomous predators that lack backbones. It does not matter to them if their prey is a vertebrate: maybe the spine gives a bit of extra crunch to the munch, but nothing more.</p><p>{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p04p4rfh\"}}</p><p>One recent report comes from the German herpetology journal <em>Salamandra</em>. <a href=\"http://www.salamandra-journal.com/index.php/home/contents/2016-vol-52/434-linares-a-m-j-a-h-maciel-junior-h-e-s-de-mello-f-s-f-leite?highlight=WyJsaW5hcmVzIl0=\">In April 2016</a>, biologists from Brazil recorded the first ever examples of dragonfly larvae eating adult frogs.</p><p>Dragonfly larvae are major aquatic predators that often eat tadpoles, and this has forced the tadpoles to come up with devious defense strategies. The tadpoles of leopard frogs will speed up their maturation if they are in a pond with dragonfly larvae. Other species of tadpoles hide, or develop ornamentations on their tails to trick the dragonfly larvae into striking at less vulnerable parts of their bodies.</p><blockquote><p> Scolopendra centipedes are particularly ferocious. They can be over 30cm long </p></blockquote><p>Dragonfly larvae might be the tigers of the water-weed jungle, but they were not thought to attack adult frogs. The new study indicates that they do, at least occasionally. The voracious larvae climbed out of their ponds onto water plants, then leapt onto the frogs and began eating them alive, while the frogs tried unsuccessfully to escape.</p><p>But dragonfly involvement in using vertebrates as victuals does not end there. Now and again, adult dragonflies also get in on the act. For instance, there is <a href=\"https://www.facebook.com/WhatDoBirdsEat/photos/a.1639558896290774.1073741828.1637387029841294/1818967645016564/?type=3&theater\">a remarkable photo</a> of a large Canadian dragonfly called a dragonhunter that caught a ruby-throated hummingbird in mid-air and began to feed on it. However, this is clearly not a common occurrence: the only other known case happened in 1977.</p><p>Elsewhere, <a href=\"http://www.thebhs.org/index.php?option=com_docman&task=doc_view&gid=11&tmpl=component&format=raw&Itemid=35\">other invertebrates</a> are regular hunters of vertebrates. Some of the most dedicated are the <em>Scolopendra</em> centipedes.</p><p>{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p04pch48\"}}</p><p>Most centipedes are predators, but <a href=\"http://eol.org/pages/14054/overview\"><em>Scolopendra</em></a> centipedes are particularly ferocious. They can be over 30cm long, and have a set of powerful fangs: these are technically called ''forcipules'', because instead of true fangs they are actually modified front legs.</p><p>These centipedes are not native to the UK, though they do occasionally hitch a ride in on imported fruit. There are five European species, but they rarely exceed 16cm and feed on other invertebrates. But things change in the tropics, where some cave-dwelling <em>Scolopendra</em> species are <a href=\"http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20161205-giant-centipede-hunts-bats\">major predators of roosting bats</a>.</p><blockquote><p> Scolopendrid venom contains between 10 and 62 proteins that can, among other things, stop an animal's heart </p></blockquote><p>The centipede <a href=\"http://www.erin.utoronto.ca/~w3bio205/centipede_bat.pdf\">scuttles up onto the ceiling of the bats' cave</a> and anchors itself with its rear half-dozen pairs of legs. These are notably <a href=\"http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/aesa/54.6.861\">thickened and muscular</a>, with extra-large and sharp claws at the tips, to keep a firm grip. Once in position, the <em>Scolopendra</em> either swings the rest of its body down into the bats' fly-space and grabs one as it flits past, or pulls one off the wall as it dozes.</p><p><a href=\"http://dx.doi.org/10.1590/1809-4392201404083\">Apart from bats</a>, these well-armoured beasts have been known to take rats, lizards, frogs and even snakes. We are not talking about innocuous grass snakes, either: these centipedes have been recorded overpowering species as fast and toxic as <a href=\"http://eol.org/pages/1057013/overview\">Indian coral snakes</a><em>.</em></p><p>Of course it is worth remembering that centipedes are some of the oldest surviving venom-bearing animals. Ones much like those around today, forcipules and all, have been found in rocks 420 million years old. Mammals, on the other paw, only appeared <a href=\"http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nature13718\">some 208 million years ago</a>. This means that, when the first shrew-sized mammals poked their whiskery noses into the world, there were large venom-charged centipedes waiting for them.  </p><p>Apart from their sheer size, the thing that makes scolopendrids such Hollywood-worthy predators is their venom.</p><p>{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p04p4t1f\"}}</p><p>Made inside the forcipules, scolopendrid venom contains <a href=\"http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/toxins7030679\">between 10 and 62 proteins</a> that can, among other things, stop an animal's heart or mess with its metabolism. Some species have venom <a href=\"https://doi.org/10.1163/187525410X12578602960425\">potent enough</a> to kill children, large dogs and, in the case of the unfortunate individual who accidentally swallowed a small one, army officers.</p><p>It also seems that scolopendrids do not know when to quit.</p><p>In <a href=\"http://www.biotaxa.org/em/article/view/8083/10146\">a study published in 2014</a>, Dragan Arsovski and colleagues reported that they had found a female horn-nosed viper dead, with its stomach burst open. The 20cm-long animal had rather rashly decided to swallow a live 15cm <em>Scolopendra</em>. This turned out to be a mistake: the centipede seems to have eaten all the snake's internal organs, then tried to chew its way to freedom through the snake's body wall. As you can see from the picture, it very nearly made it.</p><p>{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p04p4s18\"}}</p><p>The scolopendrids do not always get their own way, though. On the Caribbean island of Hispaniola there is a lizard called <a href=\"http://eol.org/pages/1056884/overview\">Warren's giant galliwasp</a>, which seems to specialise in hunting <em>Scolopendra</em> centipedes. It is, however, exceedingly rare – albeit for reasons unrelated to its diet.</p><p>Watery habitats are also rife with invertebrate predators.</p><p>{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p04p6fw8\"}}</p><p>Look at any body of water in summer and you will see long-legged insects, skittering between pond weeds, dimple-balanced on the water surface. They feed by sucking the innards out of drowning insects. But below the water surface, concealed in weeds and dead leaves, lurk waterscorpions: 2-cm-long ambush predators that eat whatever comes into reach.</p><p>In the tropics these insects are scaled up, becoming the <a href=\"http://eol.org/pages/557/overview\">giant water bugs</a>. The largest species reach 12cm.</p><p>They conceal themselves in vegetation and then pounce. They have a stout, tube-like proboscis with which they can impale their prey, inject digestive juices, and then suck up the resulting \"soup\". Large, hook-like front legs make sure there is little chance of escape.</p><p>{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p04p508h\"}}</p><p>Giant water bugs eat a lot of fish and tadpoles, as well as adult frogs and water snakes. There is even <a href=\"http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1479-8298.2011.00450.x\">a report</a> of <a href=\"http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/13500857\">a baby terrapin falling prey</a><em>.</em></p><p>{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p04p4vrm\"}}</p><p>Giant water bugs and scolopendrid centipedes are ambush predators. So while we might find their attacks creepy, at least the prey animal is dead before it is ingested.</p><p>However, crabs are not so considerate. If an animal is in the wrong place at the wrong time and cannot fight back, it faces death by a thousand claws, or mini-jaw cuts.</p><p>One such example comes from Taiwan. <a href=\"https://www.researchgate.net/publication/286888609_Predation_on_a_fanged_frog_Limonectes_kuhlii_by_a_freshwater_crab_Candidiopotamon_rathbuni\">A study published in 2005</a> reported that breeding pairs of <a href=\"http://eol.org/pages/1018731/overview\">Kuhl's fanged frogs</a> were being preyed on by <a href=\"http://eol.org/pages/344334/overview\">Rathbun's creek crabs</a>. Conceivably the frogs were too distracted to notice the crabs' approach.</p><blockquote><p> Pterostichus niger is even less sporting. It preys on newts while they are hibernating underground </p></blockquote><p>A similar case was <a href=\"http://www.herpetologynotes.seh-herpetology.org/Volume6_PDFs/Pyke_Herpetology_Notes_Volume6_page195-199.pdf\">described in 2013</a> from Broughton Island, north of Sydney in Australia. Graham Pyke of the University of Technology Sydney found that <a href=\"http://eol.org/pages/311234/overview\">golden bell frogs</a>, already endangered from habitat loss, have to cope with an annual influx of <a href=\"http://eol.org/pages/4266503/overview\">swift-footed shore crabs</a>.</p><p>The crabs migrate up from the inter-tidal zone where they normally feed, to feast on the annual gathering of breeding adult bell frogs and, a little later, their tadpoles.</p><p>You might think that tadpoles living far away from ponds would be safe, but they are not. Panamanian <a href=\"http://eol.org/pages/330769/overview\">green and black poison dart frogs</a> lay their eggs in water-filled tree holes, but there are <a href=\"http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/156854000504958\">reports</a> of these tree-top havens being found and plundered by <a href=\"http://eol.org/pages/4266800/overview\">freshwater crabs</a>. The crabs also ascend the thin branches of water-side shrubs to <a href=\"https://doi.org/10.1163/156854000504958\">feed on the eggs covering their leaves</a>, which are placed there by female glass frogs in the hope that they might develop safely.</p><p>Similarly, on Israel's central coastal plain, <em>Epomis</em> beetles go looking for young frogs and salamanders. When they find one, they jump on its back and bite it at the base of the spine. Once the animal stops moving, they start to feed. Studies by Gil Wizen and Avital Gastith of Tel-Aviv University have shown that <a href=\"https://doi.org/10.3897/zookeys.100.1526\">amphibians are pretty much all these dark blue and orange beetles eat</a>.   </p><p>A Polish cave beetle called <em>Pterostichus niger</em> is even less sporting. It preys on newts while they are hibernating underground. While the newts are too dozy too move, the beetle, which has a special cold-start metabolism, <a href=\"http://www.entomologicafennica.org/Volume25/EntFenn2014.htm\">tracks them down and feeds at leisure</a>.</p><p>{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p04p4zyb\"}}</p><p>Perhaps worse still, for the sheer creeping inevitability, is death by leeches. There are records from as places as diverse as Brazil, India and the southern USA of leeches <a href=\"http://dx.doi.org/10.13128/Acta_Herpetol-2681\">attaching themselves to adult frogs and toads</a> – <a href=\"http://www.aensiweb.com/old/jasa/rjfh/2010/9-13.pdf\">killing the luckless victims</a> – as well as ingesting whole clutches of frog spawn and even killing water-going garter snakes. </p><p>And then, of course, there are the spiders.</p><p>{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p04p4tt2\"}}</p><p>Many people <a href=\"http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/0005-7967(95)00048-3\">fear spiders</a> to some degree, even when all they are doing is feeding on insects like flies. The \"ew\" factor soars if these eight-legged hairies feed on our nearer relatives.</p><blockquote><p> Most bats eaten by spiders are first caught in webs </p></blockquote><p>A <a href=\"http://dx.doi.org/10.1676/11-148.1\">2012 review</a> found reports of 54 bird species from 23 families being trapped in spider webs in the USA alone.</p><p>Most of the webs were made by large orb-web spinners of the genus <a href=\"http://eol.org/pages/89187/overview\"><em>Nephila</em></a>. Adult females have bodies the size of a human thumb and their webs can exceed 3m in width. The majority of the victims were hummingbirds, weighing less than 15g. When found, many were already wrapped in silk and, having been envenomated, were ready to be liquefied and sucked dry</p><p>Similarly, <a href=\"http://research.amnh.org/users/ppeloso/ppeloso/Publications_files/Peloso%20%26%20Souza%202007%20-%20Predation%20of%20Todirostrum%20by%20Nephylengis%20-%20Ararajuba.pdf\">a 2007 study</a> reported that a <a href=\"http://eol.org/pages/1053321/overview\">common tody-flycatcher</a> had been found wrapped and ready in an orb-web in Brazil. The <a href=\"http://eol.org/pages/1193411/overview\"><em>Nephilengys cruentata</em></a> spider was almost as big as the 7g bird.</p><p>{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p04pcdtg\"}}</p><p>That weight is about the same as that of a large <a href=\"http://eol.org/pages/328793/overview\">proboscis bat</a>, so it should be no surprise that they too have been found in spider webs. In the case of one <a href=\"https://kuscholarworks.ku.edu/bitstream/handle/1808/4463/Timm&Losilla%20CARRIB%20J%20SCI.pdf;jsessionid=829C8BED35E59ECFEA0E020F7FBA78C7?sequence=1\">observed in 2005</a> by Kansas University tropical biologist Robert Timm, the animal was wrapped in silk and an <a href=\"http://eol.org/pages/1194722/overview\"><em>Argiope savignyi</em></a> spider was feeding on it.</p><p>{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p04p4r59\"}}</p><p><a href=\"http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0058120\">Most bats eaten by spiders are first caught in webs</a>, but not all. In India, the splendidly-named <a href=\"http://eol.org/pages/1182260/overview\">reddish parachute tarantula</a> has been <a href=\"http://www.biology.sc.chula.ac.th/TNH/archives/v12_no2/9-Shortnote%20ANOOP%20K.%20S.pdf\">seen feeding</a> on <a href=\"http://eol.org/pages/327693/overview\">Kelaart's pipistrelle</a>. At 8cm long, the animals are about the same size.</p><p>{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p04p50gf\"}}</p><p>Spiders can also take amphibians. For instance, <a href=\"http://www.herpetologynotes.seh-herpetology.org/Volume3_PDFs/Almeida_et_al_Herpetology_Notes_Volume3_pages173-174.pdf\">a 2010 paper</a> described a wolf spider preying on a newly-metamorphosed toad.</p><p>{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p04p4qbm\"}}</p><p>Meanwhile, two exotic invertebrates were accidentally introduced to Christmas Island and <a href=\"http://www.nasbr.org/pdfs/christmas_island.pdf\">may have been responsible</a> for the extinction of the native bat, the <a href=\"http://www.iucnredlist.org/details/136769/0\">Christmas Island pipistrelle</a><em>. </em>Giant <em>Scolopendra</em> centipedes did what they do best, and yellow crazy ants may have eaten the last four bats alive in their roost.</p><p>Finally, we have to mention the <a href=\"http://eol.org/pages/1182372/overview\">Goliath bird-eating spider</a>, which is a contender for the world's largest spider. Despite its name it rarely attacks birds, but \"rarely\" does not mean \"never\". In October 2016, researchers <a href=\"http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01650521.2016.1237802\">reported</a> that a Goliath bird-eating spider had killed a scale-backed antbird, after the bird became entangled in some netting.</p><p>{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p04pcdkb\"}}</p><p>These huge spiders bring us back to the importance of size. While the biggest vertebrates dwarf all invertebrates, there are plenty of invertebrates that are big enough to take on small vertebrates.</p><blockquote><p> We might not use the word \"vertebrate\", but a dog is clearly more similar to us than a giant centipede </p></blockquote><p>Being large animals, we are not used to this, but something tiny like a hummingbird would have a different perspective. Adults get snatched by praying mantises and dragonflies, and bullied away from feeders by sugar-hungry hornets. There are even records of nestling hummingbirds, which are absolutely minuscule, being <a href=\"http://dx.doi.org/10.1146/annurev.ento.45.1.121\">picked up by wasps</a> and taken back to the nest to feed their brood.</p><p>Most of us are happy to watch vertebrates hunting vertebrates; if lions kill a giraffe, we might feel sadness but not revulsion, and we cheer when <a href=\"http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20161114-from-planet-earth-ii-a-baby-iguana-is-chased-by-snakes\">the baby iguana escapes the racer snakes</a>. Similarly, if a vertebrate hunts an invertebrate, that seems normal: an early bird catching the worm is simply being enterprising.</p><p>But invertebrates eating vertebrates is another matter. We find ourselves horrified by crabs preying on baby turtles, wasps targeting nestling birds, or a giant centipede munching on a bat. Somehow it seems wrong, as if the natural order has been turned on its head – but why?</p><p>{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p04p6gy7\"}}</p><p>Perhaps it is that we instinctively recognise an evolutionary truth: other vertebrates are more like us than invertebrates. We might not use the word \"vertebrate\", but a dog is clearly more similar to us than a giant centipede. Not only does the dog have hair and the same number of limbs, it also behaves in understandable ways, displaying familiar emotions like happiness and anger.</p><blockquote><p> The complex venoms of the giant centipedes are now under intense scrutiny for the medical benefits the proteins in their venoms might bring </p></blockquote><p>In human prehistory, being able to predict an animal's behaviour made it, in some way, safe. But we cannot understand invertebrates in the same way that we understand dogs, lions or eagles. They are just too alien, their behaviour too strange and their bodies too dissimilar. They do not have waggy tails and their eyes are never big and soulful.</p><p>Perhaps on some fundamental level we do not trust invertebrates, so we are thankful that their strangeness does not manifest as predation. That would explain why we are so disturbed when it does. If a bat eats a spider, we nod knowingly from the sofa; but if a spider eats a bat, we freak out behind the cushions.</p><p>But it would be a mistake to write off these apparently alarming invertebrates as just a source of nightmares and bad horror movies. Even these seemingly freaky creatures are proving to be valuable.</p><p>In particular, the complex venoms of the giant centipedes are now under intense scrutiny for the <a href=\"http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.toxicon.2011.01.002\">medical benefits</a> the proteins in their venoms might bring. So far, compounds with exciting potential for breast cancer, heart blood flow, asthma, and thrombosis are under study. The animals have even gained a new name: \"medicinal centipedes\".</p><p><em>Join over six million BBC Earth fans by liking us on <a href=\"https://www.facebook.com/bbcearth\" target=\"_blank\">Facebook</a>, or follow us on <a href=\"https://twitter.com/bbcearth\" target=\"_blank\">Twitter</a> and <a href=\"https://instagram.com/bbcearth/\" target=\"_blank\">Instagram</a>.</em></p><p><em>If you liked this story, <a href=\"http://pages.emails.bbc.com/subscribe/?ocid=ear.bbc.email.we.email-signup\" target=\"_blank\">sign up for the weekly bbc.com features newsletter</a> called \"If You Only Read 6 Things This Week\". A handpicked selection of stories from BBC Future, Earth, Culture, Capital, Travel and Autos, delivered to your inbox every Friday.</em></p>","BusinessUnit":"worldwide","CalloutBody":"","CalloutPosition":"","CalloutSubtitle":"","CalloutTitle":"","Campaign":null,"Collection":[{"Content":{"AssetImage":[],"Campaign":null,"CollectionOverrides":null,"CollectionType":"column","Description":"Some things in nature can be a little strange","Name":"Weird","Partner":null,"PrimaryVertical":"wwearth","Title":"Weird","CreationDateTime":"2016-05-04T13:45:56.400024Z","Entity":"collection","Guid":"c5f77fbc-b7fa-4d29-afa4-0ced88986fb1","Id":"wwearth/column/weird","ModifiedDateTime":"2016-05-04T13:45:56.400024Z","Project":"wwearth","Slug":"column/weird"},"Metadata":{"CreationDateTime":"2016-05-04T13:45:56.400024Z","Entity":"collection","Guid":"c5f77fbc-b7fa-4d29-afa4-0ced88986fb1","Id":"wwearth/column/weird","ModifiedDateTime":"2016-05-04T13:45:56.400024Z","Project":"wwearth","Slug":"column/weird"},"Urn":"urn:pubstack:jative:collection:wwearth/column/weird","_id":"5981d1cce3b95bad1fa99aaf"}],"DisableAdverts":false,"DisplayDate":"2017-01-19T07:00:00Z","Geolocation":null,"HeadlineLong":"Monstrous spiders and centipedes that prey on large animals","HeadlineShort":"The spider that ate a foot-long snake","HideRelated":false,"Horizontal":null,"Intro":"There is something primally horrifying about a spider or insect attacking and eating a furry or feathered animal. But this unsettling event happens all the time","IsSyndicated":true,"Latitude":"","Location":null,"Longitude":"","Option":[{"Content":{"Description":"Apple News Publish: Select to publish, remove to unpublish. (Do not just delete or unpublish the story)","Name":"publish-applenews-system-1"},"Metadata":{"CreationDateTime":"2016-02-05T14:32:31.186819Z","Entity":"option","Guid":"13f4bc85-ae27-4a34-9397-0e6ad3619619","Id":"option/publish-applenews-system-1","ModifiedDateTime":"2016-02-05T14:32:31.186819Z","Project":"","Slug":"publish-applenews-system-1"},"Urn":"urn:pubstack:jative:option:option/publish-applenews-system-1","_id":"5981d427e3b95bad1faadbe3"}],"Partner":null,"PrimaryVertical":"wwearth","Programme":null,"RelatedStory":[{"Content":{"AssetCustom":"","AssetIbroadcast":null,"AssetImage":[],"AssetImagePromo":null,"AssetInfographic":"","AssetInline":[],"AssetSelect":"","AssetVideoIb2":null,"AssetVideoMps":null,"Author":[],"BodyHtml":"<p>Watch the moment when Sir David Attenborough and BBC filmmakers recorded a large centipede embarking on a nocturnal hunt.</p><p>Even better, you can watch a further 1000 more memorable moments, for free, anytime, on your smartphone or tablet, via <strong>Attenborough's Story of Life</strong> app, which is now available to download via <a title=\"Google Play\" href=\"https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=co.uk.bbc.storyoflife\" target=\"_blank\">Google Play</a>, or <a title=\"Apple App store\" href=\"https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/id1124476992\" target=\"_blank\">Apple's app store</a>.</p><p>{\"video\":{ \"pid\": \"p03tsvfp\",\"encoding\": \"ib2\" }}</p><p><em>Find out more at <a href=\"http://www.bbc.com/earth/storyoflife\" target=\"_blank\">http://www.bbc.com/earth/storyoflife</a>.</em></p><p><em>The Story of Life has been produced in collaboration with Sir David Attenborough, <a title=\"BBC\" href=\"http://www.bbc.com/earth/world\" target=\"_blank\">BBC Earth</a> and ideas and innovation company <a title=\"AKQA\" href=\"https://www.akqa.com/\" target=\"_blank\">AKQA</a>.</em></p>","BusinessUnit":"worldwide","CalloutBody":"","CalloutPosition":"","CalloutSubtitle":"","CalloutTitle":"","Campaign":null,"Collection":[],"DisableAdverts":false,"DisplayDate":"2016-12-07T11:45:48Z","Geolocation":null,"HeadlineLong":"Giant centipede hunts bats","HeadlineShort":"Giant centipede hunts bats","HideRelated":false,"Horizontal":null,"Intro":"This poisonous centipede seeks its prey in Venezuelan caves","IsSyndicated":false,"Latitude":"","Location":null,"Longitude":"","Option":null,"Partner":null,"PrimaryVertical":"wwearth","Programme":null,"RelatedStory":[],"RelatedTag":[],"StoryType":"video","SummaryLong":"This poisonous centipede seeks its prey in Venezuelan caves","SummaryShort":"This venomous centipede seeks its prey in Venezuelan caves","SuperSection":null,"Tag":[]},"Metadata":{"CreationDateTime":"2016-12-07T00:30:18.607539Z","Entity":"story","Guid":"53c07cd0-fe55-46db-bb82-9f664e5c1abf","Id":"wwearth/story/20161205-giant-centipede-hunts-bats","ModifiedDateTime":"2016-12-07T15:45:46.494632Z","Project":"wwearth","Slug":"20161205-giant-centipede-hunts-bats"},"Urn":"urn:pubstack:jative:story:wwearth/story/20161205-giant-centipede-hunts-bats","_id":"59942ebae3b95bad1fb508b9"},{"Content":{"AssetCustom":"","AssetIbroadcast":null,"AssetImage":[],"AssetImagePromo":null,"AssetInfographic":"","AssetInline":[],"AssetSelect":"","AssetVideoIb2":null,"AssetVideoMps":null,"Author":[],"BodyHtml":"<p>Eight legs, eight eyes and a pair of venomous fangs – the average spider is so well-equipped that it's easy to see why arachnophobes are terrified. But there is one saving grace: at least spiders are solitary, so they are usually encountered in small numbers.</p><p>That's certainly what I thought.</p><p>But then I found myself trudging along a muddy path in the Peruvian Amazon jungle, face to face with a spider colony several thousand strong. Their funnel-shaped web arched from tree to tree, a structure containing too many of the creepy crawlies to count.</p><p>These were spiders but not as I knew them: they appeared to function as a society, just like ants or bees.</p><p>{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p04f2kr9\"}}</p><p>Most spiders are indeed lone wolves, but a scant handful have evolved a level of sociality to rival ant colonies, bee hives, or even primate societies.</p><blockquote><p> Communal spiders work together to build, maintain, and clean their webs </p></blockquote><p><em>Anelosimus eximius</em>, the species I encountered in the rainforest, is not the only kind of social spider in the world, but it does construct the biggest webs. Some can reach more than 25ft (7.6m) feet long and 5ft (1.5m) wide. A web that size could contain as many as 50,000 individual spiders. That is a lot of legs, eyes and fangs.</p><p><em>A. eximius</em> was first discovered more than a century ago by a French arachnologist named <a href=\"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eug%C3%A8ne_Simon\">Eugène Simon</a>. More social spiders have been discovered since. One was found as recently as 2006, in Ecuador, by entomologist <a href=\"http://www.zoology.ubc.ca/person/laviles\">Leticia Avilés</a>.</p><p>Sociality shows up in at least seven spider families. In all we know of around 25 social species among the 45,000 described spider species on the planet. Sociality evolved at least a dozen separate times among them.</p><p>{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p03g4n99\"}}</p><p>While the details vary from species to species among the social spiders, many of their features are similar.</p><p>For example, an <em>A. eximius</em> colony contains adult males and females as well as youngsters, but the majority of spiders on the web are females. In the early 1980s, researchers found that males comprise only between 5% and 22% of any colony's populace.</p><p>Communal spiders <a href=\"http://www.jstor.org/stable/3705391\">work together</a> to build, maintain, and clean their webs. They cooperate in capturing prey, and dine together when they snare a large feast.</p><p>The females feed their offspring by vomiting up food for them, just like mother birds. They even regurgitate food for juveniles other than their own. In other words, they work together to care for the youngest in the colony. It is a sort of spider day-care.</p><p>{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p03g4nv4\"}}</p><p>Nearby colonies tend to be related to each other, because new colonies form in one of two ways.</p><p>Sometimes, a large web is broken in half, perhaps by heavy rainfall or falling branches, or even a falling monkey. In its place, two smaller colonies are left behind.</p><blockquote><p> My students know more about social spiders than your average arachnologist </p></blockquote><p>Other times, individual females will strike out on their own, setting up a new web. Eventually other dispersing females will join the group; perhaps ones who tried to set up their own webs but failed. Survival is more likely in groups, after all.</p><p>These two processes together help to explain why <em>A. eximius</em> colonies tend to be found in clusters, sometimes as many as 40 related colonies within just a few kilometres.</p><p><em>A. eximius</em> is perhaps the best known of the social spiders, but that is not saying much.</p><p>{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p03g4njg\"}}</p><p>Gregarious arachnids are not much studied – perhaps because so few of them exist in the first place. \"My students know more about social spiders than your average arachnologist,\" says <a href=\"https://entomology.cals.cornell.edu/people/linda-rayor\">Linda Rayor</a>, an entomologist at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, who studies Australia's <a href=\"http://australianmuseum.net.au/huntsman-spiders\">social huntsman spiders</a>.</p><blockquote><p> Why was the bee subject to such an awful fate? </p></blockquote><p>\"Most animals are solitary,\" she tells me, \"whether you're looking at mammals, or birds, or whatever. Social behaviour in otherwise solitary animals is cool.\"</p><p>Cool indeed, if somewhat creepy.</p><p>As I watched the social spiders go about their day deep in the jungle, a bee found itself stuck in the giant web. Suddenly, dozens of the eight-legged predators descended <em>en masse</em> onto the struggling black-and-yellow striped insect. It was impossible to see through the writhing mass of tiny spider legs, but one thing was certain: that bee was done for.</p><p>If death by one spider seems bad enough, it must be nothing compared to an attack by a whole swarm of them.</p><p>Why was the bee subject to such an awful fate? Or, to put it another way, how and why did a few spiders become social when the overwhelming majority of their fellow species are solitary?</p><p>{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p03g4ncz\"}}</p><p>The first spider, the proto-spider, was probably solitary. So the spiders that gave rise to today's truly social species must have been too. But then they did something remarkable: they turned sub-social: they learned to tolerate each other, at least for a time – even if they did not exactly enjoy hanging out in groups.</p><blockquote><p> As they mature, they become intolerant of each other </p></blockquote><p>That early tolerance could have come about as a result of parental care. In some spiders alive today, that is just defending an egg sac, but in others – the ones that are poised to evolve sociality – it looks more familiar to our mammal brains.</p><p>In those species, females provide food and protection for their developing offspring, and occasionally even to other juveniles. In some species, mothers even make the <a href=\"http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2006.3699\">ultimate sacrifice</a>, allowing themselves in their last moments to become a meal for their brood. Sub-social spiders can still be cannibals, after all.</p><p>\"They're the spiders that already have cooperation as juveniles,\" says arachnologist Jonathan Pruitt of the University of California, Santa Barbara. \"But as they mature, they become intolerant of each other.\"</p><p>In other words, juvenile tolerance alone is not enough to turn spiders fully social. The environment in which the spiders live also has to be right. Researchers have discovered three ecological elements that often lead to cooperative living among arachnids.</p><p>{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p03g4m5x\"}}</p><p>Social spiders tend to feed on bigger prey, for one thing.</p><p>Solitary spiders living in places where it is difficult to subdue large or more profitable prey alone may eventually figure out that it is in their interest to work together. It is a smaller step from tolerance to cooperation than from aggression to cooperation.</p><blockquote><p> Social spiders just about always build webs </p></blockquote><p>Another common feature is heavy rain. Rain does not have to be frequent, but when it is really intense, it has the potential to seriously damage spider webs. When a tempest takes out the web and threatens a spider's survival, the ones with just a glimmer of social behaviour might fare just a little better than their isolationist peers.</p><p>As a result, some have hypothesised that rough weather favours cooperation, since in those conditions it is the spiders that share the task of maintaining and repairing their webs that fare best. \"Many hands make light work of web repair,\" says Pruitt.</p><p>Then there is the web itself. There are only a couple of instances in which spiders that do not build webs have evolved to be sub-social. These web-less social spiders, living in places like the Australian deserts or in African scrub habitat, have to cope with unusual circumstances – like enormous prey or particularly aggressive raiding ants.</p><p>But these cases aside, social spiders just about always build webs. And most of these webs have complex, three-dimensional structures, like the cone-shaped <em>A. eximius </em>webs I encountered in the jungle.</p><p>{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p03g4m38\"}}</p><p>Pruitt thinks that could be a simple matter of mechanics. It is easier for two spiders just on the cusp of evolving sociality to join their webs together if they exist in three dimensions than if they weave flatter, two-dimensional ones, like <a href=\"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barn_spider\">Charlotte's eponymous web</a>.</p><p>Some combination of tolerance, prey size, rough weather, and web geometry combine to create the perfect storm for social behaviour to emerge in spiders.</p><blockquote><p> Anyone can do any job, and all are capable of reproduction </p></blockquote><p>Add in the fact that it is easier to defend yourself against predators in a group, and that communal webs offer spiders the relative safety of staying in one place rather than risking travelling away from the web onto which you are born to live somewhere else, and for some species, cooperation is a good deal.</p><p>These spiders, like <em>A. eximius </em>with its massive funnel pits of doom, may superficially seem to behave like social insects. But in truth they could hardly be more different.</p><p>Bees and ants sort into separate castes. Some are workers, some are soldiers (or drones), and then there is a reproductive class. Those not included in the reproductive class are sterile; they could not reproduce even if they wanted to.</p><p>Social spiders, meanwhile, are more egalitarian. Anyone can do any job, and all are capable of reproduction.</p><p>{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p03g4mpl\"}}</p><p>It is not that spider societies do not rely on the division of labour. It is just that those roles are not strictly governed as they are for the social insects.</p><blockquote><p> Spider vocations are intimately tied to their efficiency at those vocations </p></blockquote><p>And while some female social spiders do not wind up reproducing, it is not because they are physically or genetically incapable. Instead, it is usually just because they have not lived successful enough lives. It takes a lot of nutrition to make a few hundred spider babies, and a spider that does not have a rich enough diet is not really up to the task.</p><p>Instead, roles in spider colonies are usually sorted on the basis of age and sex. Researchers are increasingly coming to realise that social spiders also sort themselves according to their individual personalities. \"They're incredibly well organised,\" says Pruitt.</p><p>By paying close attention to individual spiders, he and others have discovered that certain spiders are more likely to spend their days attacking predators, while others are more likely to repair the webs, help keep parasites away, clean the web, rear the young, and so on.</p><p>{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p03g4mwg\"}}</p><p>\"Spider vocations are intimately tied to their efficiency at those vocations,\" he says.</p><blockquote><p> In spite of a lack of genetic diversity, they exhibit this exquisite diversity in terms of their personalities </p></blockquote><p>Though it is not yet clear whether those skills develop through experience or because of innate aptitude, some spiders are clearly in the construction business, some are hunters, others are on janitorial duty, and still others offer childcare services.</p><p>In species like <em>A. eximius</em>, spiders are essentially clones. Brothers and sisters mate with each other, generation after generation, so that colonies become highly inbred.</p><p>Since adolescent spiders do not go off in search of new colonies, there is no influx of new genetic material. For that reason, some suspect that spider personalities develop as a result of early life experiences, not genetics. \"In spite of a lack of genetic diversity, they exhibit this exquisite diversity in terms of their personalities,\" Pruitt says.</p><p>{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p03g4lxr\"}}</p><p>In 2013, he and his colleagues looked at a social spider called <em>Stegodyphus sarasinorum</em>, native to India, Sri Lanka, and Nepal. They <a href=\"http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2013.1407\">found that</a> individual personality traits predict which job each spider performs.</p><p><em>S. sarasinorum</em> is found in dry scrubland. But like the spiders I found in the rainforests of Peru, these arachnids work cooperatively to build and maintain their webs and to capture food.</p><blockquote><p> Social spiders have distinct personalities </p></blockquote><p>Using tiny dabs of paint applied to the spiders, Pruitt and his team were able to track 40 from each of two different wild colonies. Individuals that were bolder were more likely to be involved in attacking prey – but other characteristics, like body size or a spider's level of aggression, did not factor into their vocation.</p><p>\"Responding to stimuli from a prey caught in the web elicits different responses according to a set of individual characteristics,\" they concluded.</p><p>In other words, social spiders have distinct personalities, which in turn help to define their roles in the community.</p><p>In a way, that is not so different from human societies. Bold, risk-taking people might be more likely to wind up fighting fires or enrolling in a police academy, while the more calculating, deliberative types wind up as lawyers or architects.</p><p>Despite lacking a backbone, invertebrates like insects and arachnids lend themselves well to studying complex social behaviour. \"When it comes to a behaviour that any sort of animal can do, insects [and arachnids] can do it, if not do it better,\" says entomologist <a href=\"http://twitter.com/phil_torres\">Phil Torres</a>.</p><p>After all, they have been evolving on our planet for a lot longer than any bird or mammal has.</p>","BusinessUnit":"public service","CalloutBody":"","CalloutPosition":"","CalloutSubtitle":"","CalloutTitle":"","Campaign":null,"Collection":[],"DisableAdverts":false,"DisplayDate":"2016-01-22T07:00:00Z","Geolocation":[],"HeadlineLong":"Meet the spiders that have formed armies 50,000 strong","HeadlineShort":"The spiders that have formed armies","HideRelated":false,"Horizontal":null,"Intro":"It is like a scene from a horror film: spider webs several metres wide that are home to thousands of spiders. Why did these spiders turn social?","IsSyndicated":true,"Latitude":"","Location":null,"Longitude":"","Option":null,"Partner":null,"PrimaryVertical":"wwearth","Programme":null,"RelatedStory":[],"RelatedTag":[],"StoryType":"image","SummaryLong":"It is like a scene from a horror film: spider webs several metres wide that are home to thousands of spiders. Why did these spiders turn social?","SummaryShort":"Most spiders hunt alone, but some work together on a huge scale","SuperSection":null,"Tag":[]},"Metadata":{"CreationDateTime":"2016-01-22T07:00:24.586795Z","Entity":"story","Guid":"0f16253c-df94-4fbd-8f11-ea71607d01b6","Id":"wwearth/story/20160122-meet-the-spiders-that-have-formed-armies-50000-strong","ModifiedDateTime":"2017-01-31T11:24:06.476569Z","Project":"wwearth","Slug":"20160122-meet-the-spiders-that-have-formed-armies-50000-strong"},"Urn":"urn:pubstack:jative:story:wwearth/story/20160122-meet-the-spiders-that-have-formed-armies-50000-strong","_id":"59940c77e3b95bad1fb4f675"},{"Content":{"AssetCustom":"","AssetIbroadcast":null,"AssetImage":[],"AssetImagePromo":null,"AssetInfographic":"","AssetInline":[],"AssetSelect":"","AssetVideoIb2":null,"AssetVideoMps":null,"Author":[],"BodyHtml":"<p>Watch the amazing moment when Sir David Attenborough and BBC filmmakers recorded a toad throwing itself down the side of a mountain.</p><p>Even better, you can watch a further 1000 more memorable moments, for free, anytime, on your smartphone or tablet, via <strong>Attenborough's Story of Life</strong> app, which is now available to download via <a title=\"Google Play\" href=\"https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=co.uk.bbc.storyoflife\" target=\"_blank\">Google Play</a>, or <a title=\"Apple App store\" href=\"https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/id1124476992\" target=\"_blank\">Apple's app store</a>.</p><p>{\"video\":{ \"pid\": \"p03tm92r\",\"encoding\": \"ib2\" }}</p><p><em>Find out more at <a href=\"http://www.bbc.com/earth/storyoflife\" target=\"_blank\">http://www.bbc.com/earth/storyoflife</a>.</em></p><p><em>The Story of Life has been produced in collaboration with Sir David Attenborough, <a title=\"BBC\" href=\"http://www.bbc.com/earth/world\" target=\"_blank\">BBC Earth</a> and ideas and innovation company <a title=\"AKQA\" href=\"https://www.akqa.com/\" target=\"_blank\">AKQA</a>.</em></p>","BusinessUnit":"worldwide","CalloutBody":"","CalloutPosition":"","CalloutSubtitle":"","CalloutTitle":"","Campaign":null,"Collection":[],"DisableAdverts":false,"DisplayDate":"2017-01-16T13:58:20Z","Geolocation":null,"HeadlineLong":"Toad becomes a bouncing ball","HeadlineShort":"Toad becomes a bouncing ball","HideRelated":false,"Horizontal":null,"Intro":"A pebble toad makes a dramatic escape from a huge spider\n","IsSyndicated":false,"Latitude":"","Location":null,"Longitude":"","Option":null,"Partner":null,"PrimaryVertical":"wwearth","Programme":null,"RelatedStory":[],"RelatedTag":[],"StoryType":"video","SummaryLong":"A pebble toad makes a dramatic escape from a huge spider\n\n","SummaryShort":"A pebble toad makes a dramatic escape from a huge spider","SuperSection":null,"Tag":[]},"Metadata":{"CreationDateTime":"2017-01-13T00:30:57.518142Z","Entity":"story","Guid":"d49d2033-32aa-4308-aa06-6e84395bd1fb","Id":"wwearth/story/20170109-toad-becomes-a-bouncing-ball","ModifiedDateTime":"2017-01-31T11:35:26.716974Z","Project":"wwearth","Slug":"20170109-toad-becomes-a-bouncing-ball"},"Urn":"urn:pubstack:jative:story:wwearth/story/20170109-toad-becomes-a-bouncing-ball","_id":"5993a769e3b95bad1fb4c183"}],"RelatedTag":[{"Content":{"AssetImage":null,"Description":"","LinkUrl":"","Name":"Predator"},"Metadata":{"CreationDateTime":"2014-10-30T17:30:24Z","Entity":"tag","Guid":"dd2d24f8-a159-4ff4-b2a9-1d709186cfd9","Id":"tag/predator","ModifiedDateTime":"2015-09-03T09:17:45.89955Z","Project":"","Slug":"predator"},"Urn":"urn:pubstack:jative:tag:tag/predator","_id":"5981d4ffe3b95bad1fab56f2"}],"StoryType":"image","SummaryLong":"There is something primally horrifying about a spider or insect attacking and eating a furry or feathered animal. But this unsettling event happens all the time","SummaryShort":"How a tarantula took down a 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(Credit: Dinesh Rao, CC by 2.0)","SynopsisShort":"Stegodyphus sarasinorum spiders have personalities (Credit: Dinesh Rao, CC by 2.0)","TemplateUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20170817153358/http://ichef.bbci.co.uk/wwfeatures/$recipe/images/live/p0/3g/4l/p03g4lxr.jpg","Title":"7737103166_5359b8de3c_o-Stegodyphus_sarasinorum-Dinesh_Rao_CCby20.jpg"},"Metadata":{"CreationDateTime":"0001-01-01T00:00:00Z","Entity":"","Guid":"","Id":"p03g4lxr","ModifiedDateTime":"0001-01-01T00:00:00Z","Project":"","Slug":""},"Urn":"urn:pubstack:jative:image:p03g4lxr","_id":"59952e29e3b95bad1fb58dcc"}],"AssetSelect":"","AssetVideoIb2":null,"AssetVideoMps":null,"Author":[{"Content":{"AssetImage":null,"Description":"","Email":[],"Links":null,"Name":"Jason G. Goldman","PrimaryVertical":"wwearth"},"Metadata":{"CreationDateTime":"2014-10-17T12:37:14Z","Entity":"author","Guid":"73e91ae3-a68f-41e5-b704-6ab296f5a123","Id":"wwearth/author/20141017-jason-g-goldman","ModifiedDateTime":"2015-09-03T09:10:47.81692Z","Project":"wwearth","Slug":"20141017-jason-g-goldman"},"Urn":"urn:pubstack:jative:author:wwearth/author/20141017-jason-g-goldman","_id":"5981d1c9e3b95bad1fa9960e"}],"BodyHtml":"<p>Eight legs, eight eyes and a pair of venomous fangs – the average spider is so well-equipped that it's easy to see why arachnophobes are terrified. But there is one saving grace: at least spiders are solitary, so they are usually encountered in small numbers.</p><p>That's certainly what I thought.</p><p>But then I found myself trudging along a muddy path in the Peruvian Amazon jungle, face to face with a spider colony several thousand strong. Their funnel-shaped web arched from tree to tree, a structure containing too many of the creepy crawlies to count.</p><p>These were spiders but not as I knew them: they appeared to function as a society, just like ants or bees.</p><p>{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p04f2kr9\"}}</p><p>Most spiders are indeed lone wolves, but a scant handful have evolved a level of sociality to rival ant colonies, bee hives, or even primate societies.</p><blockquote><p> Communal spiders work together to build, maintain, and clean their webs </p></blockquote><p><em>Anelosimus eximius</em>, the species I encountered in the rainforest, is not the only kind of social spider in the world, but it does construct the biggest webs. Some can reach more than 25ft (7.6m) feet long and 5ft (1.5m) wide. A web that size could contain as many as 50,000 individual spiders. That is a lot of legs, eyes and fangs.</p><p><em>A. eximius</em> was first discovered more than a century ago by a French arachnologist named <a href=\"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eug%C3%A8ne_Simon\">Eugène Simon</a>. More social spiders have been discovered since. One was found as recently as 2006, in Ecuador, by entomologist <a href=\"http://www.zoology.ubc.ca/person/laviles\">Leticia Avilés</a>.</p><p>Sociality shows up in at least seven spider families. In all we know of around 25 social species among the 45,000 described spider species on the planet. Sociality evolved at least a dozen separate times among them.</p><p>{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p03g4n99\"}}</p><p>While the details vary from species to species among the social spiders, many of their features are similar.</p><p>For example, an <em>A. eximius</em> colony contains adult males and females as well as youngsters, but the majority of spiders on the web are females. In the early 1980s, researchers found that males comprise only between 5% and 22% of any colony's populace.</p><p>Communal spiders <a href=\"http://www.jstor.org/stable/3705391\">work together</a> to build, maintain, and clean their webs. They cooperate in capturing prey, and dine together when they snare a large feast.</p><p>The females feed their offspring by vomiting up food for them, just like mother birds. They even regurgitate food for juveniles other than their own. In other words, they work together to care for the youngest in the colony. It is a sort of spider day-care.</p><p>{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p03g4nv4\"}}</p><p>Nearby colonies tend to be related to each other, because new colonies form in one of two ways.</p><p>Sometimes, a large web is broken in half, perhaps by heavy rainfall or falling branches, or even a falling monkey. In its place, two smaller colonies are left behind.</p><blockquote><p> My students know more about social spiders than your average arachnologist </p></blockquote><p>Other times, individual females will strike out on their own, setting up a new web. Eventually other dispersing females will join the group; perhaps ones who tried to set up their own webs but failed. Survival is more likely in groups, after all.</p><p>These two processes together help to explain why <em>A. eximius</em> colonies tend to be found in clusters, sometimes as many as 40 related colonies within just a few kilometres.</p><p><em>A. eximius</em> is perhaps the best known of the social spiders, but that is not saying much.</p><p>{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p03g4njg\"}}</p><p>Gregarious arachnids are not much studied – perhaps because so few of them exist in the first place. \"My students know more about social spiders than your average arachnologist,\" says <a href=\"https://entomology.cals.cornell.edu/people/linda-rayor\">Linda Rayor</a>, an entomologist at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, who studies Australia's <a href=\"http://australianmuseum.net.au/huntsman-spiders\">social huntsman spiders</a>.</p><blockquote><p> Why was the bee subject to such an awful fate? </p></blockquote><p>\"Most animals are solitary,\" she tells me, \"whether you're looking at mammals, or birds, or whatever. Social behaviour in otherwise solitary animals is cool.\"</p><p>Cool indeed, if somewhat creepy.</p><p>As I watched the social spiders go about their day deep in the jungle, a bee found itself stuck in the giant web. Suddenly, dozens of the eight-legged predators descended <em>en masse</em> onto the struggling black-and-yellow striped insect. It was impossible to see through the writhing mass of tiny spider legs, but one thing was certain: that bee was done for.</p><p>If death by one spider seems bad enough, it must be nothing compared to an attack by a whole swarm of them.</p><p>Why was the bee subject to such an awful fate? Or, to put it another way, how and why did a few spiders become social when the overwhelming majority of their fellow species are solitary?</p><p>{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p03g4ncz\"}}</p><p>The first spider, the proto-spider, was probably solitary. So the spiders that gave rise to today's truly social species must have been too. But then they did something remarkable: they turned sub-social: they learned to tolerate each other, at least for a time – even if they did not exactly enjoy hanging out in groups.</p><blockquote><p> As they mature, they become intolerant of each other </p></blockquote><p>That early tolerance could have come about as a result of parental care. In some spiders alive today, that is just defending an egg sac, but in others – the ones that are poised to evolve sociality – it looks more familiar to our mammal brains.</p><p>In those species, females provide food and protection for their developing offspring, and occasionally even to other juveniles. In some species, mothers even make the <a href=\"http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2006.3699\">ultimate sacrifice</a>, allowing themselves in their last moments to become a meal for their brood. Sub-social spiders can still be cannibals, after all.</p><p>\"They're the spiders that already have cooperation as juveniles,\" says arachnologist Jonathan Pruitt of the University of California, Santa Barbara. \"But as they mature, they become intolerant of each other.\"</p><p>In other words, juvenile tolerance alone is not enough to turn spiders fully social. The environment in which the spiders live also has to be right. Researchers have discovered three ecological elements that often lead to cooperative living among arachnids.</p><p>{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p03g4m5x\"}}</p><p>Social spiders tend to feed on bigger prey, for one thing.</p><p>Solitary spiders living in places where it is difficult to subdue large or more profitable prey alone may eventually figure out that it is in their interest to work together. It is a smaller step from tolerance to cooperation than from aggression to cooperation.</p><blockquote><p> Social spiders just about always build webs </p></blockquote><p>Another common feature is heavy rain. Rain does not have to be frequent, but when it is really intense, it has the potential to seriously damage spider webs. When a tempest takes out the web and threatens a spider's survival, the ones with just a glimmer of social behaviour might fare just a little better than their isolationist peers.</p><p>As a result, some have hypothesised that rough weather favours cooperation, since in those conditions it is the spiders that share the task of maintaining and repairing their webs that fare best. \"Many hands make light work of web repair,\" says Pruitt.</p><p>Then there is the web itself. There are only a couple of instances in which spiders that do not build webs have evolved to be sub-social. These web-less social spiders, living in places like the Australian deserts or in African scrub habitat, have to cope with unusual circumstances – like enormous prey or particularly aggressive raiding ants.</p><p>But these cases aside, social spiders just about always build webs. And most of these webs have complex, three-dimensional structures, like the cone-shaped <em>A. eximius </em>webs I encountered in the jungle.</p><p>{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p03g4m38\"}}</p><p>Pruitt thinks that could be a simple matter of mechanics. It is easier for two spiders just on the cusp of evolving sociality to join their webs together if they exist in three dimensions than if they weave flatter, two-dimensional ones, like <a href=\"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barn_spider\">Charlotte's eponymous web</a>.</p><p>Some combination of tolerance, prey size, rough weather, and web geometry combine to create the perfect storm for social behaviour to emerge in spiders.</p><blockquote><p> Anyone can do any job, and all are capable of reproduction </p></blockquote><p>Add in the fact that it is easier to defend yourself against predators in a group, and that communal webs offer spiders the relative safety of staying in one place rather than risking travelling away from the web onto which you are born to live somewhere else, and for some species, cooperation is a good deal.</p><p>These spiders, like <em>A. eximius </em>with its massive funnel pits of doom, may superficially seem to behave like social insects. But in truth they could hardly be more different.</p><p>Bees and ants sort into separate castes. Some are workers, some are soldiers (or drones), and then there is a reproductive class. Those not included in the reproductive class are sterile; they could not reproduce even if they wanted to.</p><p>Social spiders, meanwhile, are more egalitarian. Anyone can do any job, and all are capable of reproduction.</p><p>{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p03g4mpl\"}}</p><p>It is not that spider societies do not rely on the division of labour. It is just that those roles are not strictly governed as they are for the social insects.</p><blockquote><p> Spider vocations are intimately tied to their efficiency at those vocations </p></blockquote><p>And while some female social spiders do not wind up reproducing, it is not because they are physically or genetically incapable. Instead, it is usually just because they have not lived successful enough lives. It takes a lot of nutrition to make a few hundred spider babies, and a spider that does not have a rich enough diet is not really up to the task.</p><p>Instead, roles in spider colonies are usually sorted on the basis of age and sex. Researchers are increasingly coming to realise that social spiders also sort themselves according to their individual personalities. \"They're incredibly well organised,\" says Pruitt.</p><p>By paying close attention to individual spiders, he and others have discovered that certain spiders are more likely to spend their days attacking predators, while others are more likely to repair the webs, help keep parasites away, clean the web, rear the young, and so on.</p><p>{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p03g4mwg\"}}</p><p>\"Spider vocations are intimately tied to their efficiency at those vocations,\" he says.</p><blockquote><p> In spite of a lack of genetic diversity, they exhibit this exquisite diversity in terms of their personalities </p></blockquote><p>Though it is not yet clear whether those skills develop through experience or because of innate aptitude, some spiders are clearly in the construction business, some are hunters, others are on janitorial duty, and still others offer childcare services.</p><p>In species like <em>A. eximius</em>, spiders are essentially clones. Brothers and sisters mate with each other, generation after generation, so that colonies become highly inbred.</p><p>Since adolescent spiders do not go off in search of new colonies, there is no influx of new genetic material. For that reason, some suspect that spider personalities develop as a result of early life experiences, not genetics. \"In spite of a lack of genetic diversity, they exhibit this exquisite diversity in terms of their personalities,\" Pruitt says.</p><p>{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p03g4lxr\"}}</p><p>In 2013, he and his colleagues looked at a social spider called <em>Stegodyphus sarasinorum</em>, native to India, Sri Lanka, and Nepal. They <a href=\"http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2013.1407\">found that</a> individual personality traits predict which job each spider performs.</p><p><em>S. sarasinorum</em> is found in dry scrubland. But like the spiders I found in the rainforests of Peru, these arachnids work cooperatively to build and maintain their webs and to capture food.</p><blockquote><p> Social spiders have distinct personalities </p></blockquote><p>Using tiny dabs of paint applied to the spiders, Pruitt and his team were able to track 40 from each of two different wild colonies. Individuals that were bolder were more likely to be involved in attacking prey – but other characteristics, like body size or a spider's level of aggression, did not factor into their vocation.</p><p>\"Responding to stimuli from a prey caught in the web elicits different responses according to a set of individual characteristics,\" they concluded.</p><p>In other words, social spiders have distinct personalities, which in turn help to define their roles in the community.</p><p>In a way, that is not so different from human societies. Bold, risk-taking people might be more likely to wind up fighting fires or enrolling in a police academy, while the more calculating, deliberative types wind up as lawyers or architects.</p><p>Despite lacking a backbone, invertebrates like insects and arachnids lend themselves well to studying complex social behaviour. \"When it comes to a behaviour that any sort of animal can do, insects [and arachnids] can do it, if not do it better,\" says entomologist <a href=\"http://twitter.com/phil_torres\">Phil Torres</a>.</p><p>After all, they have been evolving on our planet for a lot longer than any bird or mammal has.</p>","BusinessUnit":"public service","CalloutBody":"","CalloutPosition":"","CalloutSubtitle":"","CalloutTitle":"","Campaign":null,"Collection":[{"Content":{"AssetImage":[],"Campaign":null,"CollectionOverrides":null,"CollectionType":"column","Description":"The natural world is more beguiling than you think","Name":"Strange & Beautiful","Partner":null,"PrimaryVertical":"wwearth","Title":"Strange & Beautiful","CreationDateTime":"2015-08-31T16:04:08.809567Z","Entity":"collection","Guid":"3d7245cf-cf6e-4341-8e99-d0d0fe282b83","Id":"wwearth/column/strange-and-beautiful","ModifiedDateTime":"2015-09-03T14:51:56.821292Z","Project":"wwearth","Slug":"column/strange-and-beautiful"},"Metadata":{"CreationDateTime":"2015-08-31T16:04:08.809567Z","Entity":"collection","Guid":"3d7245cf-cf6e-4341-8e99-d0d0fe282b83","Id":"wwearth/column/strange-and-beautiful","ModifiedDateTime":"2015-09-03T14:51:56.821292Z","Project":"wwearth","Slug":"column/strange-and-beautiful"},"Urn":"urn:pubstack:jative:collection:wwearth/column/strange-and-beautiful","_id":"5981d1cbe3b95bad1fa99a6c"}],"DisableAdverts":false,"DisplayDate":"2016-01-22T07:00:00Z","Geolocation":[{"Content":{"AssetImage":[],"CountryCode":"BR","Description":"","GeolocationType":"","Id":"","InternalName":"South America","IsEnabled":true,"Name":"South America","Parent":null,"Path":"","WeatherId":""},"Metadata":{"CreationDateTime":"2015-06-25T07:31:03+01:00","Entity":"geolocation","Guid":"9bb7ea32-9a40-4011-ad4a-0da8848e35cc","Id":"geolocation/south-america","ModifiedDateTime":"2015-08-18T11:17:57.265155Z","Project":"","Slug":"south-america"},"Urn":"urn:pubstack:jative:geolocation:geolocation/south-america","_id":"5981d1f8e3b95bad1fa9b4ce"}],"HeadlineLong":"Meet the spiders that have formed armies 50,000 strong","HeadlineShort":"The spiders that have formed armies","HideRelated":false,"Horizontal":null,"Intro":"It is like a scene from a horror film: spider webs several metres wide that are home to thousands of spiders. Why did these spiders turn social?","IsSyndicated":true,"Latitude":"","Location":null,"Longitude":"","Option":null,"Partner":null,"PrimaryVertical":"wwearth","Programme":null,"RelatedStory":[{"Content":{"AssetCustom":"","AssetIbroadcast":null,"AssetImage":[],"AssetImagePromo":null,"AssetInfographic":"","AssetInline":[],"AssetSelect":"","AssetVideoIb2":null,"AssetVideoMps":null,"Author":[],"BodyHtml":"<p>Assuming you do not suffer from arachnophobia, you might well admire the intricate webs that spiders weave to catch their meals. But one species spins a web more impressive than any other. This web spans several metres and is spun in silk tougher than Kevlar.</p><p>Spider webs come in all shapes and sizes. Different spiders favour funnels, sheets, tubes or a tangle of lines to rival any <em>Mission Impossible</em> laser maze. But if asked to draw the classic spider web, most of us would sketch an orb web.</p><blockquote><p> Its conspicuous webs can reach over 40cm in diameter </p></blockquote><p>This is the name given to webs with a spiralling, circular pattern of interconnecting threads. Within an orb web, there are different types of silk: the strong scaffolding lines provide structure and the sticky capture threads trap prey.</p><p>It is not surprising that orb webs are the most familiar to us, as a lot of spiders make them. That includes most of the nearly 3000 members of the <a href=\"http://eol.org/pages/8819/overview\" target=\"_blank\">Araneidae</a> family, commonly known as the orb weavers and the third largest spider family on the planet.</p><p>{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p0396nby\"}}</p><p>In the northern hemisphere, some of the most regularly encountered webs belong to the European <a href=\"http://eol.org/pages/1194185/overview\" target=\"_blank\">garden cross spider</a>. The species is named, not for its temperament, but for the white cross marking on its bulbous abdomen.</p><blockquote><p> The largest webs in Australia belong to golden orb weavers of the Nephila genus </p></blockquote><p>Its conspicuous webs can reach over 40cm in diameter. The spiders weave them at night, ready for a day of catching common garden insects like flies, wasps and butterflies.</p><p>They are particularly noticeable in the autumn, when the verdant foliage of summer dies back. The new generation of spiders mature in this season. Dew highlights the silken lines of their woven constructions, which often hang between shrubs or over doorways.</p><p>In warmer regions of the world, both the spiders and webs can be bigger.</p><p>{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p0396n8z\"}}</p><p>The largest webs in Australia belong to golden orb weavers of the <a href=\"http://eol.org/pages/89187/overview\" target=\"_blank\"><em>Nephila</em></a> genus, named for the golden appearance of their silk. These webs can reach up to 1m in diameter and hang between trees or sign posts.</p><p>The spiders themselves can span a human hand with their legs. Their webs are very strong and <a href=\"http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/earth/earthnews/3353693/Giant-spider-eating-a-bird-caught-on-camera.html\">there are records of particularly large spiders feeding on birds that become entangled in them</a>.</p><blockquote><p> The female sprays a continuous line of silk from one bank of the river </p></blockquote><p>The <a href=\"http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0007516\">largest golden orb weaver hit the headlines in 2009 when scientists formally introduced it to the public</a>. The body of a female <a href=\"http://eol.org/pages/11599445/overview\" target=\"_blank\"><em>Nephila komaci </em></a>can be up to 4cm long, with legs more than 10cm long. They weave giant webs that can reach more than 1m in diameter.</p><p>The species is very rare: it has only been found in two locations in Madagascar and Maputaland, southern Africa.</p><p>Then in 2010, an international team of biologists announced that they had found <a href=\"http://dx.doi.org/10.1636/B09-113.1\">the world's largest spider webs, also in Madagascar</a>. The species responsible was officially described on the 150th anniversary of the publication of Charles Darwin's <em>On the Origin of Species</em>, so it was named <a href=\"http://eol.org/pages/17896869/overview\" target=\"_blank\">Darwin's bark spider</a>.</p><p>{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p0396n81\"}}</p><p>It is hard to understand why nobody noticed these spiders before. A single web can span a river 25m wide.</p><p>To build it, the female sprays a continuous line of silk from one bank of the river. Air currents carry it across to the other side to create a bridge. In the centre of this bridge, the spider constructs a spiralling orb web that can reach almost 3m in diameter.</p><p>{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p0396ndg\"}}</p><p>You might expect the creator of this colossal web to have the proportions of a fictional giant, but Darwin's bark spider is no Shelob.</p><p>{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p0396ncq\"}}</p><p>\"<em>C. darwini</em> females measure about 1.5 cm in body size, and weigh about 0.5 gram, while males are much smaller, weighing 10 times less,\" says Matjaž Gregorič of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts in Ljubljana, who has been researching the spiders since their discovery. They are also camouflaged to match tree bark.</p><p>How and why would such small spiders produce the huge quantities of silk needed for their supersize webs?</p><p>{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p0396nbk\"}}</p><p>\"Why their webs are so big is a good question and we don't have a definite answer yet,\" says Gregorič.</p><blockquote><p> No other spider utilizes the air column above open water </p></blockquote><p>To find out, he and his colleagues have been researching <a href=\"http://dx.doi.orgi/10.1111/zoj.12281\">evolutionary relationships between spiders, which should shed some light on how web weaving evolved</a>.</p><p>\"The whole genus <em>Caerostris</em> seems to have silk tougher than other spiders, and a bit of a unique web building behaviour,\" he says. While <em>Nephila </em>spiders weave webs with dense patterns of lower quality silk, <em>Caerostris</em> create sparse webs with very tough silk.</p><p>Both techniques provide a strong web that can catch prey. But by positioning their webs directly above rivers, Darwin's bark spiders can capture dozens of dragonflies, mayflies and other energy-rich insects that live over the water.</p><p>{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p0396n7n\"}}</p><p>\"We hypothesize that this combination was a predisposition for the spider to being able to conquer the unique habitat. No other spider utilizes the air column above open water, so probably, web size and material properties went hand in hand with habitat adaptation,\" says Gregorič.</p><p>{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p0396nb9\"}}</p><p>To find out if this idea is correct, biologists are studying the spiders and their silk. To test the properties of the silk they use a tensile testing machine, which Gregorič describes as: \"a machine that grabs a thread at both ends and slowly stretches it until the material fails, measuring the force as it's happening.\"</p><p>Using this method, they have found that the silk is stronger than steel. It has also been referred to as <a href=\"http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0011234\">the toughest biomaterial known</a>.</p><p>{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p0396ndv\"}}</p><p>They may sound similar, but there is a difference between toughness and strength. Strong materials are resistant to stress, but tough materials are stretchy, meaning they can absorb more energy before breaking. This is essential in a spider's web, as each strand has to resist the impact and thrashing movements of prey without disturbing the rest of the structure.</p><p>The combination of strength and toughness is highly sought after by engineers seeking to make new materials, from body armour to fishing nets. Scientists have set their sights on creating \"fibres of the future\" from spider silk, and there is no bigger target than the webs of Darwin's bark spider.</p>","BusinessUnit":"worldwide","CalloutBody":"","CalloutPosition":"","CalloutSubtitle":"","CalloutTitle":"","Campaign":null,"Collection":[],"DisableAdverts":false,"DisplayDate":"2015-11-26T09:00:00Z","Geolocation":[],"HeadlineLong":"The world's biggest spider web can span an entire river","HeadlineShort":"The biggest spider web on Earth","HideRelated":false,"Horizontal":null,"Intro":"The Darwin's bark spider is small and inconspicuous, but it spins a web 25m across using one of the toughest materials known to exist","IsSyndicated":true,"Latitude":"","Location":null,"Longitude":"","Option":[],"Partner":null,"PrimaryVertical":"wwearth","Programme":null,"RelatedStory":[],"RelatedTag":[],"StoryType":"image","SummaryLong":"The Darwin's bark spider is small and inconspicuous, but it spins a web 25m across using one of the toughest materials known to exist","SummaryShort":"It stretches across an entire river","SuperSection":null,"Tag":[]},"Metadata":{"CreationDateTime":"2015-11-26T10:40:21.487732Z","Entity":"story","Guid":"af6deaeb-f5f6-431f-9213-4789328cd498","Id":"wwearth/story/20151126-the-worlds-biggest-spider-web-can-span-an-entire-river","ModifiedDateTime":"2016-02-22T12:50:34.59878Z","Project":"wwearth","Slug":"20151126-the-worlds-biggest-spider-web-can-span-an-entire-river"},"Urn":"urn:pubstack:jative:story:wwearth/story/20151126-the-worlds-biggest-spider-web-can-span-an-entire-river","_id":"59935099e3b95bad1fb4938f"},{"Content":{"AssetCustom":"","AssetIbroadcast":null,"AssetImage":[],"AssetImagePromo":null,"AssetInfographic":"","AssetInline":[],"AssetSelect":"","AssetVideoIb2":null,"AssetVideoMps":null,"Author":[],"BodyHtml":"<p>In a dry, open field in New Mexico, US, a hungry lizard spots a brightly-coloured, hairy insect scurrying across the sandy soil. Thinking it has found a meal, the lizard sprints to catch the insect. But once it has the insect in its mouth, it finds it is too hard to chew.</p><p>The lizard then moves the insect around to find a softer chewing angle but gets nowhere. Meanwhile the insect starts to squeak and finally stings the luckless lizard in its mouth. Alarmed, the lizard spits it out.</p><p>The insect, still squeaking, gets away unscathed. The lizard is left with nothing but a sore mouth and a foul taste.           </p><p>This sturdy insect is a female velvet ant. These females have an arsenal of defences unmatched by their male partners, or any other insect. The question is, what terrifying predator forced the females to evolve so many defences? And if they are in such dire threat from predators, why are they brightly coloured? </p><p>{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p0353hmh\"}}</p><p>Let's get the confusing bit out of the way first. Velvet ants are not really ants: they are wasps. They got their name because the females look like large ants, albeit ants clothed in dense velvety hairs of various hues: they can be yellow, orange, red, white or black.</p><blockquote><p> Female velvet ants have taken the idea of warning colouration to a whole new level </p></blockquote><p>In most species, males are rather plain-looking. They are so unlike the bright and furry females, it can be hard to tell which male pairs with which female.</p><p>When faced with a predator, the males have an obvious advantage. They have wings, so they can simply fly away.</p><p>However, the females are both grounded and conspicuous. Their bright colours may seem like a dead giveaway, but they are actually a signal warning predators to stay away – just like the bright colours of a wasp warn predators that it can sting.</p><p>What's more, female velvet ants have taken the idea of warning colouration to a whole new level.</p><p>{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p03539b7\"}}</p><p>Different species of velvet ants have evolved to mimic each other. By resembling other velvet ant species from their neighbourhood, these solitary creatures have found strength in numbers.</p><blockquote><p> When a velvet ant becomes aware of a threat, it starts to squeak </p></blockquote><p>Naïve predators that try to tackle a velvet ant soon get the message, and steer clear of them in future. By all flashing the same signal, the velvet ants ensure that they all share in this protection.</p><p>Among the velvet ants of North America, the colour mimicry is extremely widespread. In a study published in August 2015, <a href=\"http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2015.06.053\">researchers grouped over 300 species into just 8 mimicry clusters</a>, based on similarities in colour, hair density and location. They range from silvery and downy velvet ants found in the hot deserts to the brownish-red and bald species found east of the Rocky Mountains.</p><p>But this colour signalling is just the start of the velvet ants' arsenal. They also use a combination of audio and chemical signalling to deter predators.</p><p>{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p03539g6\"}}</p><p>When a velvet ant becomes aware of a threat, it starts to squeak or \"stridulate\".</p><blockquote><p> Velvet ants can deter predators by releasing odours </p></blockquote><p>It does this by moving different sections of its abdomen in and out. This motion rubs a tooth-like projection on the second section, <a href=\"http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09524622.2012.736241\">the \"scraper\"</a>, against a ridged structure on the third section, the \"file\".</p><p>The resulting squeaky noise can warn off predators while they are still at a distance. But a velvet ant can also stridulate if it gets caught unawares and picked up in a predator's mouth.</p><p>To the predator, that might feel \"like a mini jackhammer going zzzzzzzzzzz\" in its mouth, says entomologist <a href=\"http://cis.arl.arizona.edu/people\">Justin Schmidt</a> of the Southwest Biological Institute in Tucson, Arizona, US. If this sensation was unpleasant enough, the predator would open its mouth and the velvet ant would escape.</p><p>On top of their squeaking, velvet ants can deter predators by releasing odours.</p><p>{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p03539ds\"}}</p><p>They have well-developed glands that secrete smelly \"allomones\": chemicals that manipulate the behaviour of another species.</p><blockquote><p> They are also agile and remarkably strong </p></blockquote><p>Specifically, they make ketones, which ants are known to use as alarm pheromones. That makes sense: velvet ants often come across ants, so they may have evolved specific allomones to repel the ants, which Schmidt and his colleagues once described as \"<a href=\"http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/BF00990473\">major potential predators</a>\" of velvet ants.</p><p>In experiments, tiny flags coated with one of these ketones were enough to trigger alarm behaviour among harvester and carpenter ant workers. The same flags also prompted fire ants to scatter until the ketones had evaporated. Similarly, fire ant workers fed less when their honey was laced with a cocktail of ketones.</p><p>So velvet ants look scary, sound scary and smell scary. They are also agile and remarkably strong.</p><p>{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p03539cg\"}}</p><p>In <a href=\"http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1570-7458.1977.tb02663.x\">a study published in 1977</a>, Schmidt and his PhD advisor <a href=\"http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/onlineathens/obituary.aspx?pid=174491209\">Murray Blum</a> presented velvet ants to a selection of predators, including ants, spiders, a praying mantis, lizards, birds and gerbils.</p><blockquote><p> A velvet ant has a hard, slippery and rounded outer shell </p></blockquote><p>When attacked by a few <a href=\"http://eol.org/pages/403244/overview\">red fire ants</a>, the velvet ants freed themselves by quickly scraping the ants off using their strong and muscular legs. However, when attacked by many ants at once, the velvet ant both removed the fire ants faster and ran faster to escape.</p><p>Schmidt and Blum repeatedly chased velvet ants with their fingers and estimated that they could scamper at about 0.5km/h (0.3mph). They can achieve these speeds because certain muscles, which in winged males control flight, are used to make the females' legs stronger, says Schmidt.</p><p>A female velvet ant's legs are so powerful, adds Schmidt, she can use them to wrestle her way out of a predator's mouth. You might think that a bigger animal like a lizard could easily crush her in its jaws, but the velvet ant is too tough for that.</p><p>{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p0353hm0\"}}</p><p>A velvet ant has a hard, slippery and rounded outer shell, and this saves it from being crunched. Schmidt and Blum calculated that the force required for successfully crushing a velvet ant is about 11 times that for a worker honeybee, and almost twice that for a stag beetle.</p><blockquote><p> What it lacks in toxicity it makes up for in sheer pain </p></blockquote><p>In line with that, when insect collectors try to pin down a dead velvet ant, they often miss because the pin glances off and pierces their finger.</p><p>Schmidt's experiments show that a velvet ant's tough shell helps to protect it from spiders, which try to inject it with venom.     </p><p>If none of that is enough to deter a predator, a velvet ant packs a legendarily painful sting.</p><p>{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p035393b\"}}</p><p>Only females have stingers. That's because the stinger, which is highly flexible and half as long as the insect itself, is <a href=\"http://www.publish.csiro.au/pid/2533.htm\">a modified egg-laying organ called an ovipositor</a>.</p><blockquote><p> Dasymutilla velvet ants are sometimes known as \"cow killers\", which is ridiculous as their sting is essentially harmless </p></blockquote><p>The venom from a velvet ant's sting is <a href=\"http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/0041-0101(80)90054-9\">only mildly toxic</a>, being <a href=\"http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/0041-0101(86)90091-7\">one of the least chemically active insect venoms</a> compared to other stinging wasps, ants and bees. But what it lacks in toxicity it makes up for in sheer pain – something Schmidt can attest to.</p><p>In 2015, Schmidt was awarded an Ig Nobel Prize \"<a href=\"http://www.improbable.com/ig/winners/#ig2015\">for painstakingly creating the Schmidt Sting Pain Index, which rates the relative pain people feel when stung by various insects</a>\". <a href=\"http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/arch.940010205\">In a study published in 1984</a>, he rated insect stings from 1 to 4, where 4 is the most painful, based on how it felt when insects stung him. So he knows exactly how painful a velvet ant sting is.</p><p>One genus of velvet ants is particularly excruciating. <em><a href=\"http://eol.org/pages/73362/overview\">Dasymutilla</a> </em>velvet ants are sometimes known as \"cow killers\", which is ridiculous as their sting is essentially harmless – apart from the pain.</p><p>Schmidt rated their stings between 2 and 3. He later described the sting of <em><a href=\"http://eol.org/pages/3817127/overview\">D. klugii</a></em> females as causing \"<a href=\"http://www.springer.com/us/book/9781402062421\">intense burning</a>\", with \"variable reactions\" lasting 5–30 minutes.</p><p>Given that they don't have stingers, males shouldn't be able to sting. But they have found a way to fake it.</p><p>{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p035391h\"}}</p><p>Unlike a lot of velvet ant researchers, <a href=\"http://www.insectevolutionlab.com/\">Joseph Wilson</a> of Utah State University Tooele in the US has never been stung by a female. But he has been stung by males.</p><blockquote><p> There's nothing that we have found that regularly eats velvet ants </p></blockquote><p>\"When you grab them they will aggressively poke you with the pointed parts of their genitalia,\" says Wilson. \"They can feel like little needles sticking into your finger.\"</p><p><a href=\"http://www.springer.com/gp/book/9781402062421\">This fake sting can be enough to dupe a predator into letting a male go</a>. \"Generally, the pseudo-sting isn't too painful but it can surprise you if you aren't expecting it,\" says Wilson.</p><p>Clearly, velvet ants are not insects to mess with. But it has proved surprisingly difficult to identify the predator that they are defending themselves from.</p><p>{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p03547pn\"}}</p><p>Lizards have long been the prime suspects. They are active at the same times and in the same locations as velvet ants, and they eat insects that are similar to velvet ants.</p><blockquote><p> The velvet ants almost always escaped unharmed </p></blockquote><p>In the 1980s, two biologists studying the diets of <a href=\"http://eol.org/pages/455023/overview\">collared lizards</a> in the southern US <a href=\"http://www.jstor.org/stable/3671473\">found velvet ants in the stomachs of two females</a>. Once in a while <a href=\"http://www.jstor.org/stable/1564347\">skinks</a> and <a href=\"http://dergipark.ulakbim.gov.tr/tbtkzoology/article/view/5000027118\">frogs</a> have also been found to eat them. But such reports have been few and far between.  </p><p>\"There are some instances when potential predators will eat [velvet ants], but in general there's nothing that we have found that regularly eats velvet ants,\" says Wilson. He is currently trying to find out if <a href=\"http://eol.org/pages/12132499/overview\">western whiptail lizards</a> eat them.</p><p>\"There aren't really any true or meaningful predators,\" agrees Schmidt.</p><p>{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p03547kw\"}}</p><p>Schmidt could not identify any in his experiments. Ants, spiders, lizards and gerbils all attacked velvet ants, but the velvet ants almost always escaped unharmed.</p><blockquote><p> Maybe their defences did not evolve to deal with predators after all </p></blockquote><p>A tarantula and a gerbil did manage to eat one each, but that was it. Some predators gave up after one or two attempts and others after being stung, even though they habitually preyed upon stinging wasps and toxic ants.  </p><p>In an intriguing experiment published in 2001, researchers dropped four velvet ant species into enclosures housing insect-eating <a href=\"http://eol.org/pages/1055604/overview\">Texas horned lizards</a>. <a href=\"http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/3672534\">The lizards only ate the ones that looked like the harvester ants they normally eat</a>, and ignored the rest.  </p><p>That suggests velvet ants only get eaten by accident, by predators targeting the ants they resemble. So maybe their defences did not evolve to deal with predators after all.</p><p>{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p0353hmw\"}}</p><p>Instead, it's conceivable that they evolved to protect the velvet ants when they lay their eggs.</p><blockquote><p> You've got to have enough defences so that you can make it through </p></blockquote><p>After mating, a female velvet ant sets off alone to find the closed underground nests of solitary wasps or bees. These insects seal their larvae inside their burrows with some food, and never return. The velvet ant female breaks into the nest and lays an egg inside.</p><p>When the velvet ant larva hatches, <a href=\"http://dx.doi.org/10.5479/si.03629236.143.1\">it feasts on the larva</a>, munching its way into its innards. It then pupates inside the nest and makes its way out as a fully-grown adult.</p><p>According to Schmidt, this \"parasitoid\" lifestyle is fraught with risk.</p><p>{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p0353hpr\"}}</p><p>\"You have a pretty hard time finding your hosts, which are often widely dispersed,\" he says. \"If you are spending hundreds and hundreds of hours exposed, with people looking at you like, 'oh yum, dinner', you've got to have enough defences so that you can make it through.\"</p><p>This is doubly true for velvet ants that, instead of targeting the undefended nests of solitary insects, break into the guarded nests of social wasps and bees.</p><p>These large nests are tempting targets, <a href=\"http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/PL00001704\">because they offer a lot of egg-laying opportunities in one place</a>, but they are also more dangerous so only a few velvet ants tackle them.</p><p>One such species is <em><a href=\"http://eol.org/pages/3817168/overview\">Mutilla europaea</a>.</em></p><p>{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p0353hm7\"}}</p><p>It once targeted bumblebees, with great success. Records from the 19th century note instances when more velvet ants hatched from a bumblebee nest than did bumblebees. They also wreaked havoc in honeybee hives.</p><blockquote><p> If the wasps do attack the velvet ant, its hardened shell protects it </p></blockquote><p>Nowadays, <em>M.</em> <em>europaea</em> velvet ants are occasionally seen strolling into the nests of <em><a href=\"http://eol.org/pages/1032842/overview\">Polistes biglumis</a></em>, a species of social paper wasp. They are there, not to lay eggs, but to eat – and they have picked an unusual diet.</p><p>These velvet ants suck the saliva from wasp larvae, <a href=\"http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10905-012-9362-4\">without inflicting any visible damage upon them</a>. \"Larval saliva is highly nutritious,\" says <a href=\"http://naturali.campusnet.unito.it/do/docenti.pl/Show?_id=clorenzi\">Maria Cristina Lorenzi</a> of the University of Turin, Italy.</p><p>Lorenzi found that an <em>M. europaea </em>female can sneak around a paper wasp nest unobserved. That's thanks to the chemical makeup of its outer shell, <a href=\"http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jinsphys.2012.06.013\">which has low concentrations of certain chemicals that cause the wasps to recognize and attack intruders</a>. If the wasps do attack the velvet ant, its hardened shell protects it.</p><p>{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p03538zq\"}}</p><p>Clearly, velvet ants like <em>M. europaea</em> have good reason to evolve defences against the insects they are targeting. But that can't explain the other defences, like colour mimicry and squeaking, which play no role in this.</p><p>That brings us back to the idea of predators and the threat they pose to velvet ants.</p><blockquote><p> It seems to me like it might be kind of a fun life to be a velvet ant </p></blockquote><p>\"We think it's just about predation,\" says Wilson. \"Maybe there's an extinct predator, and these defences evolved in connection with some predator that we are not able to identify because it's no longer here.\"</p><p>Alternatively, it may be that velvet ants were faced with a multitude of predators, all using different strategies, so had to evolve a range of defences to safeguard against them all. \"Different characteristics defend better against different predators,\" says Wilson.</p><p>In that case, maybe the reason so few animals eat them is simply that their defences are effective. Evolution has pushed them to have so many defences that, nowadays, most predators target easier prey.</p><p>\"They are such masters of life,\" says Schmidt. \"They really have figured [out] how to survive and do everything right. It seems to me like it might be kind of a fun life to be a velvet ant.\"</p><p>There's one last thing. For all that we have discovered about velvet ants, we have no idea about the most obvious question of all. Why are they so hairy?</p>","BusinessUnit":"worldwide","CalloutBody":"","CalloutPosition":"","CalloutSubtitle":"","CalloutTitle":"","Campaign":null,"Collection":[],"DisableAdverts":false,"DisplayDate":"2015-10-14T07:00:00Z","Geolocation":null,"HeadlineLong":"Velvet ants bristle with weapons and are almost invincible","HeadlineShort":"Velvet ants are almost invincible","HideRelated":false,"Horizontal":null,"Intro":"These colourful, hairy insects are beautiful to look at, but they have so many defences that virtually nothing eats them","IsSyndicated":true,"Latitude":"","Location":null,"Longitude":"","Option":null,"Partner":null,"PrimaryVertical":"wwearth","Programme":null,"RelatedStory":[],"RelatedTag":[],"StoryType":"image","SummaryLong":"These colourful, hairy insects are beautiful to look at, but they have so many defences that virtually nothing eats them","SummaryShort":"These colourful little insects are bristling with weapons","SuperSection":null,"Tag":[]},"Metadata":{"CreationDateTime":"2015-10-14T06:00:08.678592Z","Entity":"story","Guid":"03a34dcb-71a1-4d2a-98a3-3a3083d66eee","Id":"wwearth/story/20151014-superpowers-of-the-near-invincible-velvet-ant","ModifiedDateTime":"2015-10-14T10:05:28.66629Z","Project":"wwearth","Slug":"20151014-superpowers-of-the-near-invincible-velvet-ant"},"Urn":"urn:pubstack:jative:story:wwearth/story/20151014-superpowers-of-the-near-invincible-velvet-ant","_id":"5994ef88e3b95bad1fb56d54"},{"Content":{"AssetCustom":"","AssetIbroadcast":null,"AssetImage":[],"AssetImagePromo":null,"AssetInfographic":"","AssetInline":[],"AssetSelect":"","AssetVideoIb2":null,"AssetVideoMps":null,"Author":[],"BodyHtml":"<p>Could it be true? Could spiders really be climbing into our mouths at night? If not, how come so many of us have swallowed this as fact?</p><p><a href=\"https://www.facebook.com/bbcearth/photos/a.138589359507962.19621.118883634811868/1071171566249732/\" target=\"_blank\">We posted the question on the BBC Earth Facebook page</a> to see if we could establish the truth.</p><p>“If we do I don't really want to know it,” says <a href=\"https://www.facebook.com/bbcearth/photos/a.138589359507962.19621.118883634811868/1071171566249732/?type=3&comment_id=1071173316249557&offset=0&total_comments=379&comment_tr\" target=\"_blank\">Margie Williamson</a>, a sentiment that many of you echoed. “Please tell me this is a myth or I will bandage my mouth up,” says <a href=\"https://www.facebook.com/bbcearth/photos/a.138589359507962.19621.118883634811868/1071171566249732/?type=3&comment_id=1071178026249086&offset=50&total_comments=380&comment_tracking=%7B%22tn%22%3A%22R9%22%7D\" target=\"_blank\">Claire Jeyes</a>.</p><p>Spiders have been known to inhabit ear canals, as in the case of <a href=\"http://www.cbsnews.com/news/spider-lives-in-chinese-womans-ear-for-five-days-before-doctors-flush-it-out/\" target=\"_blank\">this Chinese woman</a> who went to Changsha Central Hospital of Otolaryngology and Head and Neck Surgery with an itchy ear. Similarly, in 2014 the singer <a href=\"http://www.theguardian.com/music/2014/nov/02/katie-melua-finds-spider-living-in-ear\" target=\"_blank\">Katie Melua</a> revealed that a jumping spider had hitch-hiked its way into her auditory canal on a pair of earbud headphones.</p><p>“Pretty sure that proves they are not above crawling inside a human,” writes <a href=\"https://www.facebook.com/bbcearth/photos/a.138589359507962.19621.118883634811868/1071171566249732/?type=3&comment_id=1071172602916295&reply_comment_id=1071180822915473&total_comments=33&comment_tracking=%7B%22tn%22%3A%22R9%22%7D\">Juli Marie</a> on BBC Earth’s Facebook page.</p><p>{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p0387f0r\"}}</p><p>In the medical literature, there are cases of spiders biting people whilst they sleep. In <a href=\"http://www.researchgate.net/publication/10616210_White-tail_spider_bite_A_prospective_study_of_130_definite_bites_by_Lampona_species\" target=\"_blank\">a study of white-tail spider</a> bites in Australia, around one in three people reported they had been bitten whilst they slept.</p><p>Recluse spiders of the genus <em>Loxosceles</em> are also mostly active at night and can give a bad enough bite to send people to hospital. <a href=\"http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.annemergmed.2004.08.028\" target=\"_blank\">A review of these injuries</a> suggests that most of them tend to be on a limb, hand or foot, though there are occasional bites to the face, including one to <a href=\"http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0161-6420(00)00183-4\" target=\"_blank\">an 8-year-old girl’s eyelid</a> whilst she slept.</p><p>Some of you have had a similar nocturnal encounter with a spider.</p><blockquote><p> When I awoke I could feel something in my mouth between my lower teeth and gum so put my finger in and scooped out a small spider </p></blockquote><p>“I once got bit on the face by a spider while I was asleep,” says <a href=\"https://www.facebook.com/bbcearth/photos/a.138589359507962.19621.118883634811868/1071171566249732/?type=3&comment_id=1071176192915936&offset=0&total_comments=380&comment_tracking=%7B%22tn%22%3A%22R9%22%7D\" target=\"_blank\">Wendy Marshall</a>. “We lived in South Africa at the time. The doctor said it was probably crawling across my face and I've disturbed it! Thankfully it will have been far too big to swallow.”</p><p><a href=\"https://www.facebook.com/bbcearth/photos/a.138589359507962.19621.118883634811868/1071171566249732/?type=3&comment_id=1071218976244991&offset=50&total_comments=3\" target=\"_blank\">Sue Mazer</a> has a friend who woke up “with a thousand pin sized bites all over her face as a result of an egg sac opening up at night above her bed”.</p><p>Anecdotes like these are pretty good evidence that spiders will stray onto the face of a sleeping person and, on occasion, they might even enter a mouth. <a href=\"https://www.facebook.com/bbcearth/photos/a.138589359507962.19621.118883634811868/1071171566249732/?type=3&comment_id=1071329839567238&offset=0&total_c\" target=\"_blank\">Mudassirul Waris</a> claims that he was brushing his teeth one morning when he became aware of an unusually “funky smell” in his mouth and spat out “what appeared to be the legs of a common house spider”.</p><p>Similarly <a href=\"https://www.facebook.com/bbcearth/photos/a.138589359507962.19621.118883634811868/1071171566249732/?type=3&comment_id=1071196162913939&offset=50&total_comments=379&comment_tracking=%7B%22tn%22%3A%22R9%22%7D\" target=\"_blank\">Paul Dixon</a> recalls a time when he was living in a converted attic. “When I awoke I could feel something in my mouth between my lower teeth and gum so put my finger in and scooped out a small spider,” he says. “It happens.”</p><p>{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p0387dsj\"}}</p><p>If this is making some of you anxious, it’s probably time to bring in <a href=\"https://uk.linkedin.com/in/dave-clarke-9b41263b\">Dave Clarke</a>, head of invertebrates at London Zoo in the UK.</p><p>“Most predators won’t tackle anything bigger than themselves because they are likely to come off worse,” says Clarke. Spiders are highly sensitive to both vibrations and heat so are unlikely to stumble across a human unawares. “They are just not interested in us at all really,” he says.</p><blockquote><p> It has not been possible to confirm the existence of either Holst or the article she is supposed to have written </p></blockquote><p>Clarke’s expert opinion is echoed by <a href=\"https://www.facebook.com/bbcearth/photos/a.138589359507962.19621.118883634811868/1071171566249732/?type=3&comment_id=1071180792915476&offset=50&total_comments=380&comment_tracking=%7B%22tn%22%3A%22R9%22%7D\" target=\"_blank\">Karen Collins</a>’ eight-year-old daughter. “Spiders aren't silly enough to be eaten by us,” she says. “Anyway the snoring will scare them away!”</p><p>As comforting as this is, it seems only reasonable to assume that the odd arachnid will occasionally find itself inside the mouth of an unfortunate human, particularly if we include mites (<a href=\"https://www.facebook.com/bbcearth/photos/a.138589359507962.19621.118883634811868/1071171566249732/?type=3&comment_id=1071273399572882&offset=50&total_comments=380&comment_tracking=%7B%22tn%22%3A%22R9%22%7D\" target=\"_blank\">Jan Tegner </a>and <a href=\"https://www.facebook.com/bbcearth/photos/a.138589359507962.19621.118883634811868/1071171566249732/?type=3&comment_id=1071189622914593&offset=50&total_comments=380&comment_tracking=%7B%22tn%22%3A%22R9%22%7D\" target=\"_blank\">Sabine Lafazani</a>). But how often might this be happening?</p><p><a href=\"https://www.facebook.com/bbcearth/photos/a.138589359507962.19621.118883634811868/1071171566249732/?type=3&comment_id=1071202682913287&offset=200&total_comments=380&comment_tracking=%7B%22tn%22%3A%22R9%22%7D\" target=\"_blank\">Craig Beattie</a> has heard that the average accidental, nocturnal consumption of spiders is seven per year. <a href=\"https://www.facebook.com/bbcearth/photos/a.138589359507962.19621.118883634811868/1071171566249732/?type=3&comment_id=1071536799546542&offset=150&total_comments=379&comment_tracking=%7B%22tn%22%3A%22R3%22%7D\" target=\"_blank\">Ann Aylmer</a> agrees that it’s seven, but reckons this is the number of spiders we swallow in a lifetime. No, say <a href=\"https://www.facebook.com/bbcearth/photos/a.138589359507962.19621.118883634811868/1071171566249732/?type=3&comment_id=1071245626242326&\" target=\"_blank\">Sara Winardi</a>, <a href=\"https://www.facebook.com/bbcearth/photos/a.138589359507962.19621.118883634811868/1071171566249732/?type=3&comment_id=1071341506232738&offset=200&total_comm\" target=\"_blank\">Janelle Loader</a>, <a href=\"https://www.facebook.com/bbcearth/photos/a.138589359507962.19621.118883634811868/1071171566249732/?type=3&comment_id=1071201109580111&offset=200&total_comments=379&comment_tr\" target=\"_blank\">Bobbi O’Dwyer</a>, <a href=\"https://www.facebook.com/bbcearth/photos/a.138589359507962.19621.118883634811868/1071171566249732/?type=3&comment_id=1071172209583001&offset=0&total_comments=379&comment_tracking=\" target=\"_blank\">Susie Que</a> and <a href=\"https://www.facebook.com/bbcearth/photos/a.138589359507962.19621.118883634811868/1071171566249732/?type=3&comment_id=1071254169574805&offset=50&total_comments=379&comment_tracking=%257B%2522tn%2522%25\" target=\"_blank\">Adalia Kroblen:</a> the correct statistic is eight in a lifetime. <a href=\"https://www.facebook.com/bbcearth/photos/a.138589359507962.19621.118883634811868/1071171566249732/?type=3&comment_id=1071323742901181&offset=250&total_comments=379&com\">Jon Parker</a> is not buying any of this: “How on Earth would we know?”</p><p>{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p0387dy7\"}}</p><p>Indeed, the specificity of these claims is more than a little suspicious.</p><p>According to <a href=\"https://www.facebook.com/bbcearth/photos/a.138589359507962.19621.118883634811868/1071171566249732/?type=3&comment_id=1071172522916303&offset=250&total_comments=380&comment_tracking=%7B%22tn%22%3A%22R9%22%7D\" target=\"_blank\">Kenneth Knutsen</a>, such assertions originate from a PC Professional article published in 1993 in which columnist Lisa Holst made up bogus “facts” to demonstrate the gullibility of email recipients. “In a delicious irony,” writes Knutsen, “Holst’s propagation of this false ‘fact’ has spurred it into becoming one of the most widely-circulated bits of misinformation to be found on the internet.”</p><p>But Knutsen may not have the last word on irony.</p><p>The idea that Lisa Holst is the originator of the spider statistic is reported in <a href=\"http://www.snopes.com/science/stats/spiders.asp\" target=\"_blank\">an article on snopes.com</a>, a website dedicated to clearing up internet rumours and urban legends. As yet, however, it has not been possible to confirm the existence of either Holst or the article she is supposed to have written, raising the ironic possibility that snopes.com might need to shine a light on itself.</p>","BusinessUnit":"worldwide","CalloutBody":"","CalloutPosition":"","CalloutSubtitle":"","CalloutTitle":"","Campaign":null,"Collection":[],"DisableAdverts":false,"DisplayDate":"2015-11-17T07:00:00Z","Geolocation":null,"HeadlineLong":"Is it true that we swallow spiders when we sleep?","HeadlineShort":"Do we really eat spiders at night?","HideRelated":false,"Horizontal":null,"Intro":"No one seems to know for sure whether we regularly swallow spiders in our sleep, but our readers’ experiences suggest it can happen sometimes","IsSyndicated":true,"Latitude":"","Location":null,"Longitude":"","Option":[],"Partner":null,"PrimaryVertical":"wwearth","Programme":null,"RelatedStory":null,"RelatedTag":[],"StoryType":"image","SummaryLong":"No one seems to know for sure whether we regularly swallow spiders in our sleep, but our readers’ experiences suggest it can happen sometimes","SummaryShort":"Supposedly we all swallow seven every year","SuperSection":null,"Tag":[]},"Metadata":{"CreationDateTime":"2015-11-17T07:00:07.533246Z","Entity":"story","Guid":"7ffe58af-f268-4e89-881f-d6810c7a03ce","Id":"wwearth/story/20151117-is-it-true-that-we-accidentally-swallow-spiders-when-we-sleep","ModifiedDateTime":"2016-02-22T12:51:04.807487Z","Project":"wwearth","Slug":"20151117-is-it-true-that-we-accidentally-swallow-spiders-when-we-sleep"},"Urn":"urn:pubstack:jative:story:wwearth/story/20151117-is-it-true-that-we-accidentally-swallow-spiders-when-we-sleep","_id":"5992cb47e3b95bad1fb44d6b"}],"RelatedTag":[{"Content":{"AssetImage":null,"Description":"","LinkUrl":"","Name":"Social"},"Metadata":{"CreationDateTime":"2015-10-21T10:38:52.827093Z","Entity":"tag","Guid":"4554b10b-f412-4203-94be-bdc9b5bff985","Id":"tag/social","ModifiedDateTime":"2015-10-21T10:38:52.827093Z","Project":"","Slug":"social"},"Urn":"urn:pubstack:jative:tag:tag/social","_id":"5981d4ffe3b95bad1fab5764"}],"StoryType":"image","SummaryLong":"It is like a scene from a horror film: spider webs several metres wide that are home to thousands of spiders. Why did these spiders turn social?","SummaryShort":"Most spiders hunt alone, but some work together on a huge scale","SuperSection":null,"Tag":[{"Content":{"AssetImage":null,"Description":"","LinkUrl":"","Name":"Spider","CreationDateTime":"2014-09-02T14:05:07Z","Entity":"tag","Guid":"ae47bdaa-4a3c-4261-9bb6-7d1732622e7d","Id":"tag/spider","ModifiedDateTime":"2015-09-03T09:15:00.411672Z","Project":"","Slug":"spider"},"Metadata":{"CreationDateTime":"2014-09-02T14:05:07Z","Entity":"tag","Guid":"ae47bdaa-4a3c-4261-9bb6-7d1732622e7d","Id":"tag/spider","ModifiedDateTime":"2015-09-03T09:15:00.411672Z","Project":"","Slug":"spider"},"Urn":"urn:pubstack:jative:tag:tag/spider","_id":"5981d500e3b95bad1fab57ca"}],"CreationDateTime":"2016-01-22T07:00:24.586795Z","Entity":"story","Guid":"0f16253c-df94-4fbd-8f11-ea71607d01b6","Id":"wwearth/story/20160122-meet-the-spiders-that-have-formed-armies-50000-strong","ModifiedDateTime":"2017-01-31T11:24:06.476569Z","Project":"wwearth","Slug":"20160122-meet-the-spiders-that-have-formed-armies-50000-strong"},"Metadata":{"CreationDateTime":"2016-01-22T07:00:24.586795Z","Entity":"story","Guid":"0f16253c-df94-4fbd-8f11-ea71607d01b6","Id":"wwearth/story/20160122-meet-the-spiders-that-have-formed-armies-50000-strong","ModifiedDateTime":"2017-01-31T11:24:06.476569Z","Project":"wwearth","Slug":"20160122-meet-the-spiders-that-have-formed-armies-50000-strong"},"Urn":"urn:pubstack:jative:story:wwearth/story/20160122-meet-the-spiders-that-have-formed-armies-50000-strong","_id":"59940c77e3b95bad1fb4f675"},{"Content":{"AssetCustom":"","AssetIbroadcast":null,"AssetImage":[{"Content":{"FileSizeBytes":1090845,"MimeType":"image/jpeg","SourceHeight":1080,"SourceUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20170817153358/https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/live-galileo-interface-mt-resources-imagebucket-1a92e5tj3b5d6/p0/3m/nq/p03mnqn0.jpg","SourceWidth":1920,"SynopsisLong":"Goliath birdeater (Theraphosa blondi) (Credit: Juniors Bildarchiv GmbH/Alamy Stock Photo)","SynopsisMedium":"Goliath birdeater (Theraphosa blondi) (Credit: Juniors Bildarchiv GmbH/Alamy Stock Photo)","SynopsisShort":"Goliath birdeater (Theraphosa blondi) (Credit: Juniors Bildarchiv GmbH/Alamy Stock 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Quinta/naturepl.com)","SynopsisMedium":"Desertas wolf spider (Hogna ingens) (Credit: Luis Quinta/naturepl.com)","SynopsisShort":"Desertas wolf spider (Hogna ingens) (Credit: Luis Quinta/naturepl.com)","TemplateUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20170817153358/http://ichef.bbci.co.uk/wwfeatures/$recipe/images/live/p0/3m/nq/p03mnqqc.jpg","Title":"01213580-Hogna_ingens-Luis_Quinta-NPL.jpg"},"Metadata":{"CreationDateTime":"0001-01-01T00:00:00Z","Entity":"","Guid":"","Id":"p03mnqqc","ModifiedDateTime":"0001-01-01T00:00:00Z","Project":"","Slug":""},"Urn":"urn:pubstack:jative:image:p03mnqqc","_id":"5994ff3fe3b95bad1fb57590"},{"Content":{"FileSizeBytes":1785311,"MimeType":"image/jpeg","SourceHeight":1080,"SourceUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20170817153358/https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/live-galileo-interface-mt-resources-imagebucket-1a92e5tj3b5d6/p0/3m/nq/p03mnqwj.jpg","SourceWidth":1920,"SynopsisLong":"Giant huntsman spider (Heteropoda maxima) (Credit: Michal Cerny/Alamy Stock Photo)","SynopsisMedium":"Giant huntsman spider (Heteropoda maxima) (Credit: Michal Cerny/Alamy Stock Photo)","SynopsisShort":"Giant huntsman spider (Heteropoda maxima) (Credit: Michal Cerny/Alamy Stock Photo)","TemplateUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20170817153358/http://ichef.bbci.co.uk/wwfeatures/$recipe/images/live/p0/3m/nq/p03mnqwj.jpg","Title":"C9CRGH-Heteropoda_maxima-Michal_Cerny-Alamy.jpg"},"Metadata":{"CreationDateTime":"0001-01-01T00:00:00Z","Entity":"","Guid":"","Id":"p03mnqwj","ModifiedDateTime":"0001-01-01T00:00:00Z","Project":"","Slug":""},"Urn":"urn:pubstack:jative:image:p03mnqwj","_id":"5994ff3fe3b95bad1fb57591"},{"Content":{"FileSizeBytes":317856,"MimeType":"image/jpeg","SourceHeight":1080,"SourceUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20170817153358/https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/live-galileo-interface-mt-resources-imagebucket-1a92e5tj3b5d6/p0/3m/nr/p03mnr8c.jpg","SourceWidth":1920,"SynopsisLong":"A king baboon tarantula (Pelinobius muticus) displaying aggression (Credit: FLPA/Alamy Stock Photo)","SynopsisMedium":"A king baboon tarantula (Pelinobius muticus) displaying aggression (Credit: FLPA/Alamy Stock Photo)","SynopsisShort":"King baboon tarantula (Pelinobius muticus) (Credit: FLPA/Alamy Stock Photo)","TemplateUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20170817153358/http://ichef.bbci.co.uk/wwfeatures/$recipe/images/live/p0/3m/nr/p03mnr8c.jpg","Title":"CNNDN0-Pelinobius_muticus-FLPA-Alamy.jpg"},"Metadata":{"CreationDateTime":"0001-01-01T00:00:00Z","Entity":"","Guid":"","Id":"p03mnr8c","ModifiedDateTime":"0001-01-01T00:00:00Z","Project":"","Slug":""},"Urn":"urn:pubstack:jative:image:p03mnr8c","_id":"5994ff3ee3b95bad1fb5758f"},{"Content":{"FileSizeBytes":408994,"MimeType":"image/jpeg","SourceHeight":1238,"SourceUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20170817153358/https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/live-galileo-interface-mt-resources-imagebucket-1a92e5tj3b5d6/p0/4f/2k/p04f2kr9.jpg","SourceWidth":2200,"SynopsisLong":"This video is no longer available","SynopsisMedium":"This video is no longer available","SynopsisShort":"This video is no longer available","TemplateUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20170817153358/http://ichef.bbci.co.uk/wwfeatures/$recipe/images/live/p0/4f/2k/p04f2kr9.jpg","Title":"Earth_Default_Video.jpg"},"Metadata":{"CreationDateTime":"0001-01-01T00:00:00Z","Entity":"","Guid":"","Id":"p04f2kr9","ModifiedDateTime":"0001-01-01T00:00:00Z","Project":"","Slug":""},"Urn":"urn:pubstack:jative:image:p04f2kr9","_id":"5995b39fe3b95bad1fb5d490"},{"Content":{"FileSizeBytes":1090845,"MimeType":"image/jpeg","SourceHeight":1080,"SourceUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20170817153358/https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/live-galileo-interface-mt-resources-imagebucket-1a92e5tj3b5d6/p0/3m/nq/p03mnqn0.jpg","SourceWidth":1920,"SynopsisLong":"Goliath birdeater (Theraphosa blondi) (Credit: Juniors Bildarchiv GmbH/Alamy Stock Photo)","SynopsisMedium":"Goliath birdeater (Theraphosa blondi) (Credit: Juniors Bildarchiv GmbH/Alamy Stock Photo)","SynopsisShort":"Goliath birdeater (Theraphosa blondi) (Credit: Juniors Bildarchiv GmbH/Alamy Stock Photo)","TemplateUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20170817153358/http://ichef.bbci.co.uk/wwfeatures/$recipe/images/live/p0/3m/nq/p03mnqn0.jpg","Title":"B3MG45-Theraphosa_blondi-Juniors-Bildarchiv-GmbH-Alamy.jpg"},"Metadata":{"CreationDateTime":"0001-01-01T00:00:00Z","Entity":"","Guid":"","Id":"p03mnqn0","ModifiedDateTime":"0001-01-01T00:00:00Z","Project":"","Slug":""},"Urn":"urn:pubstack:jative:image:p03mnqn0","_id":"59959cbfe3b95bad1fb5c8c1"},{"Content":{"FileSizeBytes":1463639,"MimeType":"image/jpeg","SourceHeight":1080,"SourceUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20170817153358/https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/live-galileo-interface-mt-resources-imagebucket-1a92e5tj3b5d6/p0/3m/nq/p03mnqtd.jpg","SourceWidth":1920,"SynopsisLong":"\"Spiders, ants and hummingbird on a branch of a guava\", the illustration that gave rise to the name \"birdeater\" (Credit: Maria Sibylla Merian)","SynopsisMedium":"\"Spiders, ants and hummingbird on a branch of a guava\", the illustration that gave rise to the name \"birdeater\" (Credit: Maria Sibylla Merian)","SynopsisShort":"\"Spiders, ants and hummingbird on a branch of a guava\" (Credit: Maria Sibylla Merian)","TemplateUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20170817153358/http://ichef.bbci.co.uk/wwfeatures/$recipe/images/live/p0/3m/nq/p03mnqtd.jpg","Title":"Spiders,-ants-and-hummingbird-on-a-branch-of-a-guava-Maria_Sibylla_Merian.jpg"},"Metadata":{"CreationDateTime":"0001-01-01T00:00:00Z","Entity":"","Guid":"","Id":"p03mnqtd","ModifiedDateTime":"0001-01-01T00:00:00Z","Project":"","Slug":""},"Urn":"urn:pubstack:jative:image:p03mnqtd","_id":"5994ff3de3b95bad1fb5758d"}],"AssetSelect":"","AssetVideoIb2":null,"AssetVideoMps":null,"Author":[{"Content":{"AssetImage":null,"Description":"","Email":[],"Links":null,"Name":"Ella Davies","PrimaryVertical":"wwearth"},"Metadata":{"CreationDateTime":"2014-10-17T14:00:28Z","Entity":"author","Guid":"d73adf2e-db4d-472b-8f75-d3deaf2f597b","Id":"wwearth/author/ella-davies","ModifiedDateTime":"2015-09-03T09:17:21.73298Z","Project":"wwearth","Slug":"ella-davies"},"Urn":"urn:pubstack:jative:author:wwearth/author/ella-davies","_id":"5981d1cae3b95bad1fa997d9"}],"BodyHtml":"<p>You might think you would notice an eight-legged animal the size of a dinner plate, but in fact many of the world's biggest spiders are easily overlooked.</p><p>In Europe, the <a href=\"http://eol.org/pages/1197108/overview\">Desertas wolf spider</a> is only found in a single valley on the island of Madeira, Portugal. It is one of the world's largest wolf spiders, with a body length of up to 1.6 inches (4cm) and distinctive black legs with white polka dots.</p><p>{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p03mnqqc\"}}</p><p>The family name conjures up fierce and predatory associations, and rightly so. Wolf spiders are named for their active hunting style. Instead of capturing prey in a web, these arachnids pounce on their meals.</p><blockquote><p> Like any self-respecting legendary spider, it lives in a cave </p></blockquote><p>However there are ways in which they differ from wolves. The spiders are solitary rather than pack hunters, so they ambush their prey or chase it down over a short distance. Also, they hunt millipedes, not mammals.</p><p>The most distinguishing characteristic of wolf spiders is the layout of their eyes. They have a row of four small ones, with two larger eyes above, topped by another two slightly smaller ones that boost their predatory senses. The Desertas wolf spider's excellent eyesight allows it to hunt fast-moving beetles and even small lizards.</p><p>But conservationists are now keeping a keen eye on Europe's biggest spider. <a href=\"http://www.iucnredlist.org/details/58048571/0\">It has been classified as \"critically endangered\"</a> because <a href=\"http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jnc.2014.08.005\">its unique habitat is being overgrown with invasive grass</a>.</p><p>A similarly remote location is home to one of Asia's biggest spiders: the giant huntsman spider.</p><p>{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p03mnqwj\"}}</p><p>It has a leg span of up to 30 cm (1 foot), which has been championed as the world's biggest. Like any self-respecting legendary spider, it lives in a cave.</p><p>In 2001, <a href=\"http://www.senckenberg.de/files/content/forschung/abteilung/terrzool/arachnologie/hetmax.pdf\">Peter Jäger discovered the species in a collection at the National Museum of Natural History in Paris, France</a>, before heading out to Laos to visit its secluded habitat. Why it grows to such a significant size remains something of a mystery.</p><blockquote><p> When approached, a king baboon spider rears up to expose its fangs and hisses loudly by rubbing its legs together </p></blockquote><p>\"A straightforward explanation is difficult,\" says Jäger, \"But I guess one reason in the case of <em>H. maxima</em> is certainly the cave-dwelling habit… prey is scarcer than outside, [meaning] growth is slower and this may result in bigger size.\" </p><p>Unfortunately the media spotlight on the giant huntsman has had negative consequences. <a href=\"http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20150720-giant-animals-youve-never-seen\">Jäger reports that its numbers are dwindling due to unregulated demand by the pet trade</a>.</p><p>There are also large <a href=\"http://eol.org/pages/180/overview\">huntsman spiders</a> in Australia. They usually hide under loose tree bark, but their long legs have also been spotted behind wall clocks and sun-visors in cars.</p><p>Since they prey on pests such as flies, they should be considered welcome guests. But their crab-like appearance, leg span of up to 6 inches (16cm) and ability to deliver a nasty nip when provoked can be alarming.  </p><p>The huntsman might have the best pins, but the true heavyweight champions are the <a href=\"http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20150629-the-truth-about-tarantulas\">tarantulas</a>.</p><p>{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p03mnr8c\"}}</p><p>One of Africa's largest living spiders is the <a href=\"http://eol.org/pages/1181836/overview\">king baboon tarantula</a><em>. </em>It has a leg span of up to 8 inches (20cm) and is rusty red-brown in colour. In the wild it digs into the soil of grasslands, then constructs webs across its burrows to catch prey.</p><blockquote><p> Hysterocrates hercules has a name which is bigger than the actual spider! </p></blockquote><p>Their size makes them popular pets, but their temperament is less appealing. Their common name refers to the fact that baboons often eat them, and as a result they are highly defensive towards primates, including humans. When approached, a king baboon spider rears up to expose its fangs and hisses loudly by rubbing its legs together.</p><p>There is another species of African tarantula revered among collectors. There is a thriving unscrupulous online trade in \"super-sized\" Hercules baboon spiders, even though they have not been seen in the wild since 1900.</p><p>\"<em>Hysterocrates hercules</em> has a name which is bigger than the actual spider!\" says Richard Gallon from the <a href=\"http://www.britishspiders.org.uk/\">British Arachnological Society</a>. \"Although the only known specimen has the largest carapace of any African spider, there are other species of tarantula in Africa which are heavier and with larger leg-spans.\"</p><blockquote><p> The first part of the Goliath birdeater's name is no exaggeration </p></blockquote><p>That single specimen resides in a jar of preserving alcohol in the Natural History Museum in London, UK.</p><p>There are unlikely to be more anytime soon. \"<em>Hysterocrates hercules</em> was collected from central Nigeria, an area which is now politically unstable, so not a place for researchers to risk their lives visiting,\" says Gallon. \"Grassland tarantulas are also difficult to find, often needing several hours of searching by an experienced team to locate specimens.\"</p><p>In 2011, staff at the Natural History Museum brought in a <a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NKNONH9jvMw#t=18\">Guinness World Records expert to witness a showdown</a>. They measured the volume of their Hercules baboon spider against a similarly-preserved <a href=\"http://eol.org/pages/1182372/overview\">Goliath bird-eating spider</a>. This settled the matter: <em>H. hercules</em> was less than a third of the size of Goliath.</p><p>{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p04f2kr9\"}}</p><p>The first part of the Goliath birdeater's name is no exaggeration. Its legs span 11 inches (28cm), just shy of the giant huntsman, but it is a much bulkier animal.</p><p>Size is much debated, particularly among the tarantula breeding community. But one of the heaviest captive-bred specimens was identified by Guinness experts as Rosi. She weighed in at 6 oz (175g) and had a body length of almost 4.7 inches (12cm).</p><p>{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p03mnqn0\"}}</p><p>In the wild, Goliath birdeaters are rarely encountered. They live in the upland rainforests of South America and are nocturnal. To maintain their impressive physiques, they are voracious predators – of earthworms.</p><p>The B-movie moniker comes from early explorers, who reported having witnessed one eating a hummingbird. The naturalist Maria Sibylla Merian created a dramatic illustration of this incident, <a href=\"https://pictures.royalsociety.org/image-rs-9939\">which promptly did the Victorian equivalent of going viral</a>.</p><p>{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p03mnqtd\"}}</p><p>In truth, being a ground-based predator the Goliath birdeater's diet is unlikely to include many birds. But the opportunistic spiders have been recorded snacking on frogs, toads, lizards and small mice.</p><blockquote><p> In the wild, Goliath birdeaters are rarely encountered </p></blockquote><p>This diet obviously helps to boost their size, but it also makes them a bigger target for predatory mammals and birds. Fortunately, they have powerful defences.</p><p>\"The large South American species possess particularly irritating hair on the abdomen, which they rake off into the air with the spines on their rear legs,\" says Gallon. \"These tiny irritant hairs waft in the air and settle on the mucus membranes – eyes, nose – of would-be attackers and discourage them.\"</p><p>For true giants, it is not enough to be big: they have to be hairy too.</p>","BusinessUnit":"worldwide","CalloutBody":"","CalloutPosition":"","CalloutSubtitle":"","CalloutTitle":"","Campaign":null,"Collection":[{"Content":{"AssetImage":[],"Campaign":null,"CollectionOverrides":null,"CollectionType":"column","Description":"The animals and plants that push the limits","Name":"Record Breakers","Partner":null,"PrimaryVertical":"wwearth","Title":"Record Breakers","CreationDateTime":"2015-08-31T16:09:36.292319Z","Entity":"collection","Guid":"73fc2996-8233-447a-bc4a-bbee2c81921c","Id":"wwearth/column/record-breakers","ModifiedDateTime":"2015-09-03T14:56:23.442954Z","Project":"wwearth","Slug":"column/record-breakers"},"Metadata":{"CreationDateTime":"2015-08-31T16:09:36.292319Z","Entity":"collection","Guid":"73fc2996-8233-447a-bc4a-bbee2c81921c","Id":"wwearth/column/record-breakers","ModifiedDateTime":"2015-09-03T14:56:23.442954Z","Project":"wwearth","Slug":"column/record-breakers"},"Urn":"urn:pubstack:jative:collection:wwearth/column/record-breakers","_id":"5981d1cbe3b95bad1fa99a67"}],"DisableAdverts":false,"DisplayDate":"2016-03-15T07:00:00Z","Geolocation":null,"HeadlineLong":"The world's largest spider is the size of a dinner plate","HeadlineShort":"Goliath spider dwarfs all the rest","HideRelated":false,"Horizontal":null,"Intro":"Most spiders are only a few centimetres long, but a few species have grown far, far bigger","IsSyndicated":true,"Latitude":"","Location":null,"Longitude":"","Option":null,"Partner":null,"PrimaryVertical":"wwearth","Programme":null,"RelatedStory":[{"Content":{"AssetCustom":"","AssetIbroadcast":null,"AssetImage":[],"AssetImagePromo":null,"AssetInfographic":"","AssetInline":[],"AssetSelect":"","AssetVideoIb2":null,"AssetVideoMps":null,"Author":[],"BodyHtml":"<p>Assuming you do not suffer from arachnophobia, you might well admire the intricate webs that spiders weave to catch their meals. But one species spins a web more impressive than any other. This web spans several metres and is spun in silk tougher than Kevlar.</p><p>Spider webs come in all shapes and sizes. Different spiders favour funnels, sheets, tubes or a tangle of lines to rival any <em>Mission Impossible</em> laser maze. But if asked to draw the classic spider web, most of us would sketch an orb web.</p><blockquote><p> Its conspicuous webs can reach over 40cm in diameter </p></blockquote><p>This is the name given to webs with a spiralling, circular pattern of interconnecting threads. Within an orb web, there are different types of silk: the strong scaffolding lines provide structure and the sticky capture threads trap prey.</p><p>It is not surprising that orb webs are the most familiar to us, as a lot of spiders make them. That includes most of the nearly 3000 members of the <a href=\"http://eol.org/pages/8819/overview\" target=\"_blank\">Araneidae</a> family, commonly known as the orb weavers and the third largest spider family on the planet.</p><p>{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p0396nby\"}}</p><p>In the northern hemisphere, some of the most regularly encountered webs belong to the European <a href=\"http://eol.org/pages/1194185/overview\" target=\"_blank\">garden cross spider</a>. The species is named, not for its temperament, but for the white cross marking on its bulbous abdomen.</p><blockquote><p> The largest webs in Australia belong to golden orb weavers of the Nephila genus </p></blockquote><p>Its conspicuous webs can reach over 40cm in diameter. The spiders weave them at night, ready for a day of catching common garden insects like flies, wasps and butterflies.</p><p>They are particularly noticeable in the autumn, when the verdant foliage of summer dies back. The new generation of spiders mature in this season. Dew highlights the silken lines of their woven constructions, which often hang between shrubs or over doorways.</p><p>In warmer regions of the world, both the spiders and webs can be bigger.</p><p>{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p0396n8z\"}}</p><p>The largest webs in Australia belong to golden orb weavers of the <a href=\"http://eol.org/pages/89187/overview\" target=\"_blank\"><em>Nephila</em></a> genus, named for the golden appearance of their silk. These webs can reach up to 1m in diameter and hang between trees or sign posts.</p><p>The spiders themselves can span a human hand with their legs. Their webs are very strong and <a href=\"http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/earth/earthnews/3353693/Giant-spider-eating-a-bird-caught-on-camera.html\">there are records of particularly large spiders feeding on birds that become entangled in them</a>.</p><blockquote><p> The female sprays a continuous line of silk from one bank of the river </p></blockquote><p>The <a href=\"http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0007516\">largest golden orb weaver hit the headlines in 2009 when scientists formally introduced it to the public</a>. The body of a female <a href=\"http://eol.org/pages/11599445/overview\" target=\"_blank\"><em>Nephila komaci </em></a>can be up to 4cm long, with legs more than 10cm long. They weave giant webs that can reach more than 1m in diameter.</p><p>The species is very rare: it has only been found in two locations in Madagascar and Maputaland, southern Africa.</p><p>Then in 2010, an international team of biologists announced that they had found <a href=\"http://dx.doi.org/10.1636/B09-113.1\">the world's largest spider webs, also in Madagascar</a>. The species responsible was officially described on the 150th anniversary of the publication of Charles Darwin's <em>On the Origin of Species</em>, so it was named <a href=\"http://eol.org/pages/17896869/overview\" target=\"_blank\">Darwin's bark spider</a>.</p><p>{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p0396n81\"}}</p><p>It is hard to understand why nobody noticed these spiders before. A single web can span a river 25m wide.</p><p>To build it, the female sprays a continuous line of silk from one bank of the river. Air currents carry it across to the other side to create a bridge. In the centre of this bridge, the spider constructs a spiralling orb web that can reach almost 3m in diameter.</p><p>{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p0396ndg\"}}</p><p>You might expect the creator of this colossal web to have the proportions of a fictional giant, but Darwin's bark spider is no Shelob.</p><p>{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p0396ncq\"}}</p><p>\"<em>C. darwini</em> females measure about 1.5 cm in body size, and weigh about 0.5 gram, while males are much smaller, weighing 10 times less,\" says Matjaž Gregorič of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts in Ljubljana, who has been researching the spiders since their discovery. They are also camouflaged to match tree bark.</p><p>How and why would such small spiders produce the huge quantities of silk needed for their supersize webs?</p><p>{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p0396nbk\"}}</p><p>\"Why their webs are so big is a good question and we don't have a definite answer yet,\" says Gregorič.</p><blockquote><p> No other spider utilizes the air column above open water </p></blockquote><p>To find out, he and his colleagues have been researching <a href=\"http://dx.doi.orgi/10.1111/zoj.12281\">evolutionary relationships between spiders, which should shed some light on how web weaving evolved</a>.</p><p>\"The whole genus <em>Caerostris</em> seems to have silk tougher than other spiders, and a bit of a unique web building behaviour,\" he says. While <em>Nephila </em>spiders weave webs with dense patterns of lower quality silk, <em>Caerostris</em> create sparse webs with very tough silk.</p><p>Both techniques provide a strong web that can catch prey. But by positioning their webs directly above rivers, Darwin's bark spiders can capture dozens of dragonflies, mayflies and other energy-rich insects that live over the water.</p><p>{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p0396n7n\"}}</p><p>\"We hypothesize that this combination was a predisposition for the spider to being able to conquer the unique habitat. No other spider utilizes the air column above open water, so probably, web size and material properties went hand in hand with habitat adaptation,\" says Gregorič.</p><p>{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p0396nb9\"}}</p><p>To find out if this idea is correct, biologists are studying the spiders and their silk. To test the properties of the silk they use a tensile testing machine, which Gregorič describes as: \"a machine that grabs a thread at both ends and slowly stretches it until the material fails, measuring the force as it's happening.\"</p><p>Using this method, they have found that the silk is stronger than steel. It has also been referred to as <a href=\"http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0011234\">the toughest biomaterial known</a>.</p><p>{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p0396ndv\"}}</p><p>They may sound similar, but there is a difference between toughness and strength. Strong materials are resistant to stress, but tough materials are stretchy, meaning they can absorb more energy before breaking. This is essential in a spider's web, as each strand has to resist the impact and thrashing movements of prey without disturbing the rest of the structure.</p><p>The combination of strength and toughness is highly sought after by engineers seeking to make new materials, from body armour to fishing nets. Scientists have set their sights on creating \"fibres of the future\" from spider silk, and there is no bigger target than the webs of Darwin's bark spider.</p>","BusinessUnit":"worldwide","CalloutBody":"","CalloutPosition":"","CalloutSubtitle":"","CalloutTitle":"","Campaign":null,"Collection":[],"DisableAdverts":false,"DisplayDate":"2015-11-26T09:00:00Z","Geolocation":[],"HeadlineLong":"The world's biggest spider web can span an entire river","HeadlineShort":"The biggest spider web on Earth","HideRelated":false,"Horizontal":null,"Intro":"The Darwin's bark spider is small and inconspicuous, but it spins a web 25m across using one of the toughest materials known to exist","IsSyndicated":true,"Latitude":"","Location":null,"Longitude":"","Option":[],"Partner":null,"PrimaryVertical":"wwearth","Programme":null,"RelatedStory":[],"RelatedTag":[],"StoryType":"image","SummaryLong":"The Darwin's bark spider is small and inconspicuous, but it spins a web 25m across using one of the toughest materials known to exist","SummaryShort":"It stretches across an entire river","SuperSection":null,"Tag":[]},"Metadata":{"CreationDateTime":"2015-11-26T10:40:21.487732Z","Entity":"story","Guid":"af6deaeb-f5f6-431f-9213-4789328cd498","Id":"wwearth/story/20151126-the-worlds-biggest-spider-web-can-span-an-entire-river","ModifiedDateTime":"2016-02-22T12:50:34.59878Z","Project":"wwearth","Slug":"20151126-the-worlds-biggest-spider-web-can-span-an-entire-river"},"Urn":"urn:pubstack:jative:story:wwearth/story/20151126-the-worlds-biggest-spider-web-can-span-an-entire-river","_id":"59935099e3b95bad1fb4938f"},{"Content":{"AssetCustom":"","AssetIbroadcast":null,"AssetImage":[],"AssetImagePromo":null,"AssetInfographic":"","AssetInline":[],"AssetSelect":"","AssetVideoIb2":null,"AssetVideoMps":null,"Author":[],"BodyHtml":"<p>Eight legs, eight eyes and a pair of venomous fangs – the average spider is so well-equipped that it's easy to see why arachnophobes are terrified. But there is one saving grace: at least spiders are solitary, so they are usually encountered in small numbers.</p><p>That's certainly what I thought.</p><p>But then I found myself trudging along a muddy path in the Peruvian Amazon jungle, face to face with a spider colony several thousand strong. Their funnel-shaped web arched from tree to tree, a structure containing too many of the creepy crawlies to count.</p><p>These were spiders but not as I knew them: they appeared to function as a society, just like ants or bees.</p><p>{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p04f2kr9\"}}</p><p>Most spiders are indeed lone wolves, but a scant handful have evolved a level of sociality to rival ant colonies, bee hives, or even primate societies.</p><blockquote><p> Communal spiders work together to build, maintain, and clean their webs </p></blockquote><p><em>Anelosimus eximius</em>, the species I encountered in the rainforest, is not the only kind of social spider in the world, but it does construct the biggest webs. Some can reach more than 25ft (7.6m) feet long and 5ft (1.5m) wide. A web that size could contain as many as 50,000 individual spiders. That is a lot of legs, eyes and fangs.</p><p><em>A. eximius</em> was first discovered more than a century ago by a French arachnologist named <a href=\"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eug%C3%A8ne_Simon\">Eugène Simon</a>. More social spiders have been discovered since. One was found as recently as 2006, in Ecuador, by entomologist <a href=\"http://www.zoology.ubc.ca/person/laviles\">Leticia Avilés</a>.</p><p>Sociality shows up in at least seven spider families. In all we know of around 25 social species among the 45,000 described spider species on the planet. Sociality evolved at least a dozen separate times among them.</p><p>{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p03g4n99\"}}</p><p>While the details vary from species to species among the social spiders, many of their features are similar.</p><p>For example, an <em>A. eximius</em> colony contains adult males and females as well as youngsters, but the majority of spiders on the web are females. In the early 1980s, researchers found that males comprise only between 5% and 22% of any colony's populace.</p><p>Communal spiders <a href=\"http://www.jstor.org/stable/3705391\">work together</a> to build, maintain, and clean their webs. They cooperate in capturing prey, and dine together when they snare a large feast.</p><p>The females feed their offspring by vomiting up food for them, just like mother birds. They even regurgitate food for juveniles other than their own. In other words, they work together to care for the youngest in the colony. It is a sort of spider day-care.</p><p>{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p03g4nv4\"}}</p><p>Nearby colonies tend to be related to each other, because new colonies form in one of two ways.</p><p>Sometimes, a large web is broken in half, perhaps by heavy rainfall or falling branches, or even a falling monkey. In its place, two smaller colonies are left behind.</p><blockquote><p> My students know more about social spiders than your average arachnologist </p></blockquote><p>Other times, individual females will strike out on their own, setting up a new web. Eventually other dispersing females will join the group; perhaps ones who tried to set up their own webs but failed. Survival is more likely in groups, after all.</p><p>These two processes together help to explain why <em>A. eximius</em> colonies tend to be found in clusters, sometimes as many as 40 related colonies within just a few kilometres.</p><p><em>A. eximius</em> is perhaps the best known of the social spiders, but that is not saying much.</p><p>{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p03g4njg\"}}</p><p>Gregarious arachnids are not much studied – perhaps because so few of them exist in the first place. \"My students know more about social spiders than your average arachnologist,\" says <a href=\"https://entomology.cals.cornell.edu/people/linda-rayor\">Linda Rayor</a>, an entomologist at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, who studies Australia's <a href=\"http://australianmuseum.net.au/huntsman-spiders\">social huntsman spiders</a>.</p><blockquote><p> Why was the bee subject to such an awful fate? </p></blockquote><p>\"Most animals are solitary,\" she tells me, \"whether you're looking at mammals, or birds, or whatever. Social behaviour in otherwise solitary animals is cool.\"</p><p>Cool indeed, if somewhat creepy.</p><p>As I watched the social spiders go about their day deep in the jungle, a bee found itself stuck in the giant web. Suddenly, dozens of the eight-legged predators descended <em>en masse</em> onto the struggling black-and-yellow striped insect. It was impossible to see through the writhing mass of tiny spider legs, but one thing was certain: that bee was done for.</p><p>If death by one spider seems bad enough, it must be nothing compared to an attack by a whole swarm of them.</p><p>Why was the bee subject to such an awful fate? Or, to put it another way, how and why did a few spiders become social when the overwhelming majority of their fellow species are solitary?</p><p>{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p03g4ncz\"}}</p><p>The first spider, the proto-spider, was probably solitary. So the spiders that gave rise to today's truly social species must have been too. But then they did something remarkable: they turned sub-social: they learned to tolerate each other, at least for a time – even if they did not exactly enjoy hanging out in groups.</p><blockquote><p> As they mature, they become intolerant of each other </p></blockquote><p>That early tolerance could have come about as a result of parental care. In some spiders alive today, that is just defending an egg sac, but in others – the ones that are poised to evolve sociality – it looks more familiar to our mammal brains.</p><p>In those species, females provide food and protection for their developing offspring, and occasionally even to other juveniles. In some species, mothers even make the <a href=\"http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2006.3699\">ultimate sacrifice</a>, allowing themselves in their last moments to become a meal for their brood. Sub-social spiders can still be cannibals, after all.</p><p>\"They're the spiders that already have cooperation as juveniles,\" says arachnologist Jonathan Pruitt of the University of California, Santa Barbara. \"But as they mature, they become intolerant of each other.\"</p><p>In other words, juvenile tolerance alone is not enough to turn spiders fully social. The environment in which the spiders live also has to be right. Researchers have discovered three ecological elements that often lead to cooperative living among arachnids.</p><p>{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p03g4m5x\"}}</p><p>Social spiders tend to feed on bigger prey, for one thing.</p><p>Solitary spiders living in places where it is difficult to subdue large or more profitable prey alone may eventually figure out that it is in their interest to work together. It is a smaller step from tolerance to cooperation than from aggression to cooperation.</p><blockquote><p> Social spiders just about always build webs </p></blockquote><p>Another common feature is heavy rain. Rain does not have to be frequent, but when it is really intense, it has the potential to seriously damage spider webs. When a tempest takes out the web and threatens a spider's survival, the ones with just a glimmer of social behaviour might fare just a little better than their isolationist peers.</p><p>As a result, some have hypothesised that rough weather favours cooperation, since in those conditions it is the spiders that share the task of maintaining and repairing their webs that fare best. \"Many hands make light work of web repair,\" says Pruitt.</p><p>Then there is the web itself. There are only a couple of instances in which spiders that do not build webs have evolved to be sub-social. These web-less social spiders, living in places like the Australian deserts or in African scrub habitat, have to cope with unusual circumstances – like enormous prey or particularly aggressive raiding ants.</p><p>But these cases aside, social spiders just about always build webs. And most of these webs have complex, three-dimensional structures, like the cone-shaped <em>A. eximius </em>webs I encountered in the jungle.</p><p>{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p03g4m38\"}}</p><p>Pruitt thinks that could be a simple matter of mechanics. It is easier for two spiders just on the cusp of evolving sociality to join their webs together if they exist in three dimensions than if they weave flatter, two-dimensional ones, like <a href=\"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barn_spider\">Charlotte's eponymous web</a>.</p><p>Some combination of tolerance, prey size, rough weather, and web geometry combine to create the perfect storm for social behaviour to emerge in spiders.</p><blockquote><p> Anyone can do any job, and all are capable of reproduction </p></blockquote><p>Add in the fact that it is easier to defend yourself against predators in a group, and that communal webs offer spiders the relative safety of staying in one place rather than risking travelling away from the web onto which you are born to live somewhere else, and for some species, cooperation is a good deal.</p><p>These spiders, like <em>A. eximius </em>with its massive funnel pits of doom, may superficially seem to behave like social insects. But in truth they could hardly be more different.</p><p>Bees and ants sort into separate castes. Some are workers, some are soldiers (or drones), and then there is a reproductive class. Those not included in the reproductive class are sterile; they could not reproduce even if they wanted to.</p><p>Social spiders, meanwhile, are more egalitarian. Anyone can do any job, and all are capable of reproduction.</p><p>{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p03g4mpl\"}}</p><p>It is not that spider societies do not rely on the division of labour. It is just that those roles are not strictly governed as they are for the social insects.</p><blockquote><p> Spider vocations are intimately tied to their efficiency at those vocations </p></blockquote><p>And while some female social spiders do not wind up reproducing, it is not because they are physically or genetically incapable. Instead, it is usually just because they have not lived successful enough lives. It takes a lot of nutrition to make a few hundred spider babies, and a spider that does not have a rich enough diet is not really up to the task.</p><p>Instead, roles in spider colonies are usually sorted on the basis of age and sex. Researchers are increasingly coming to realise that social spiders also sort themselves according to their individual personalities. \"They're incredibly well organised,\" says Pruitt.</p><p>By paying close attention to individual spiders, he and others have discovered that certain spiders are more likely to spend their days attacking predators, while others are more likely to repair the webs, help keep parasites away, clean the web, rear the young, and so on.</p><p>{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p03g4mwg\"}}</p><p>\"Spider vocations are intimately tied to their efficiency at those vocations,\" he says.</p><blockquote><p> In spite of a lack of genetic diversity, they exhibit this exquisite diversity in terms of their personalities </p></blockquote><p>Though it is not yet clear whether those skills develop through experience or because of innate aptitude, some spiders are clearly in the construction business, some are hunters, others are on janitorial duty, and still others offer childcare services.</p><p>In species like <em>A. eximius</em>, spiders are essentially clones. Brothers and sisters mate with each other, generation after generation, so that colonies become highly inbred.</p><p>Since adolescent spiders do not go off in search of new colonies, there is no influx of new genetic material. For that reason, some suspect that spider personalities develop as a result of early life experiences, not genetics. \"In spite of a lack of genetic diversity, they exhibit this exquisite diversity in terms of their personalities,\" Pruitt says.</p><p>{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p03g4lxr\"}}</p><p>In 2013, he and his colleagues looked at a social spider called <em>Stegodyphus sarasinorum</em>, native to India, Sri Lanka, and Nepal. They <a href=\"http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2013.1407\">found that</a> individual personality traits predict which job each spider performs.</p><p><em>S. sarasinorum</em> is found in dry scrubland. But like the spiders I found in the rainforests of Peru, these arachnids work cooperatively to build and maintain their webs and to capture food.</p><blockquote><p> Social spiders have distinct personalities </p></blockquote><p>Using tiny dabs of paint applied to the spiders, Pruitt and his team were able to track 40 from each of two different wild colonies. Individuals that were bolder were more likely to be involved in attacking prey – but other characteristics, like body size or a spider's level of aggression, did not factor into their vocation.</p><p>\"Responding to stimuli from a prey caught in the web elicits different responses according to a set of individual characteristics,\" they concluded.</p><p>In other words, social spiders have distinct personalities, which in turn help to define their roles in the community.</p><p>In a way, that is not so different from human societies. Bold, risk-taking people might be more likely to wind up fighting fires or enrolling in a police academy, while the more calculating, deliberative types wind up as lawyers or architects.</p><p>Despite lacking a backbone, invertebrates like insects and arachnids lend themselves well to studying complex social behaviour. \"When it comes to a behaviour that any sort of animal can do, insects [and arachnids] can do it, if not do it better,\" says entomologist <a href=\"http://twitter.com/phil_torres\">Phil Torres</a>.</p><p>After all, they have been evolving on our planet for a lot longer than any bird or mammal has.</p>","BusinessUnit":"public service","CalloutBody":"","CalloutPosition":"","CalloutSubtitle":"","CalloutTitle":"","Campaign":null,"Collection":[],"DisableAdverts":false,"DisplayDate":"2016-01-22T07:00:00Z","Geolocation":[],"HeadlineLong":"Meet the spiders that have formed armies 50,000 strong","HeadlineShort":"The spiders that have formed armies","HideRelated":false,"Horizontal":null,"Intro":"It is like a scene from a horror film: spider webs several metres wide that are home to thousands of spiders. Why did these spiders turn social?","IsSyndicated":true,"Latitude":"","Location":null,"Longitude":"","Option":null,"Partner":null,"PrimaryVertical":"wwearth","Programme":null,"RelatedStory":[],"RelatedTag":[],"StoryType":"image","SummaryLong":"It is like a scene from a horror film: spider webs several metres wide that are home to thousands of spiders. Why did these spiders turn social?","SummaryShort":"Most spiders hunt alone, but some work together on a huge scale","SuperSection":null,"Tag":[]},"Metadata":{"CreationDateTime":"2016-01-22T07:00:24.586795Z","Entity":"story","Guid":"0f16253c-df94-4fbd-8f11-ea71607d01b6","Id":"wwearth/story/20160122-meet-the-spiders-that-have-formed-armies-50000-strong","ModifiedDateTime":"2017-01-31T11:24:06.476569Z","Project":"wwearth","Slug":"20160122-meet-the-spiders-that-have-formed-armies-50000-strong"},"Urn":"urn:pubstack:jative:story:wwearth/story/20160122-meet-the-spiders-that-have-formed-armies-50000-strong","_id":"59940c77e3b95bad1fb4f675"},{"Content":{"AssetCustom":"","AssetIbroadcast":null,"AssetImage":[],"AssetImagePromo":null,"AssetInfographic":"","AssetInline":[],"AssetSelect":"","AssetVideoIb2":null,"AssetVideoMps":null,"Author":[],"BodyHtml":"<p>Could it be true? Could spiders really be climbing into our mouths at night? If not, how come so many of us have swallowed this as fact?</p><p><a href=\"https://www.facebook.com/bbcearth/photos/a.138589359507962.19621.118883634811868/1071171566249732/\" target=\"_blank\">We posted the question on the BBC Earth Facebook page</a> to see if we could establish the truth.</p><p>“If we do I don't really want to know it,” says <a href=\"https://www.facebook.com/bbcearth/photos/a.138589359507962.19621.118883634811868/1071171566249732/?type=3&comment_id=1071173316249557&offset=0&total_comments=379&comment_tr\" target=\"_blank\">Margie Williamson</a>, a sentiment that many of you echoed. “Please tell me this is a myth or I will bandage my mouth up,” says <a href=\"https://www.facebook.com/bbcearth/photos/a.138589359507962.19621.118883634811868/1071171566249732/?type=3&comment_id=1071178026249086&offset=50&total_comments=380&comment_tracking=%7B%22tn%22%3A%22R9%22%7D\" target=\"_blank\">Claire Jeyes</a>.</p><p>Spiders have been known to inhabit ear canals, as in the case of <a href=\"http://www.cbsnews.com/news/spider-lives-in-chinese-womans-ear-for-five-days-before-doctors-flush-it-out/\" target=\"_blank\">this Chinese woman</a> who went to Changsha Central Hospital of Otolaryngology and Head and Neck Surgery with an itchy ear. Similarly, in 2014 the singer <a href=\"http://www.theguardian.com/music/2014/nov/02/katie-melua-finds-spider-living-in-ear\" target=\"_blank\">Katie Melua</a> revealed that a jumping spider had hitch-hiked its way into her auditory canal on a pair of earbud headphones.</p><p>“Pretty sure that proves they are not above crawling inside a human,” writes <a href=\"https://www.facebook.com/bbcearth/photos/a.138589359507962.19621.118883634811868/1071171566249732/?type=3&comment_id=1071172602916295&reply_comment_id=1071180822915473&total_comments=33&comment_tracking=%7B%22tn%22%3A%22R9%22%7D\">Juli Marie</a> on BBC Earth’s Facebook page.</p><p>{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p0387f0r\"}}</p><p>In the medical literature, there are cases of spiders biting people whilst they sleep. In <a href=\"http://www.researchgate.net/publication/10616210_White-tail_spider_bite_A_prospective_study_of_130_definite_bites_by_Lampona_species\" target=\"_blank\">a study of white-tail spider</a> bites in Australia, around one in three people reported they had been bitten whilst they slept.</p><p>Recluse spiders of the genus <em>Loxosceles</em> are also mostly active at night and can give a bad enough bite to send people to hospital. <a href=\"http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.annemergmed.2004.08.028\" target=\"_blank\">A review of these injuries</a> suggests that most of them tend to be on a limb, hand or foot, though there are occasional bites to the face, including one to <a href=\"http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0161-6420(00)00183-4\" target=\"_blank\">an 8-year-old girl’s eyelid</a> whilst she slept.</p><p>Some of you have had a similar nocturnal encounter with a spider.</p><blockquote><p> When I awoke I could feel something in my mouth between my lower teeth and gum so put my finger in and scooped out a small spider </p></blockquote><p>“I once got bit on the face by a spider while I was asleep,” says <a href=\"https://www.facebook.com/bbcearth/photos/a.138589359507962.19621.118883634811868/1071171566249732/?type=3&comment_id=1071176192915936&offset=0&total_comments=380&comment_tracking=%7B%22tn%22%3A%22R9%22%7D\" target=\"_blank\">Wendy Marshall</a>. “We lived in South Africa at the time. The doctor said it was probably crawling across my face and I've disturbed it! Thankfully it will have been far too big to swallow.”</p><p><a href=\"https://www.facebook.com/bbcearth/photos/a.138589359507962.19621.118883634811868/1071171566249732/?type=3&comment_id=1071218976244991&offset=50&total_comments=3\" target=\"_blank\">Sue Mazer</a> has a friend who woke up “with a thousand pin sized bites all over her face as a result of an egg sac opening up at night above her bed”.</p><p>Anecdotes like these are pretty good evidence that spiders will stray onto the face of a sleeping person and, on occasion, they might even enter a mouth. <a href=\"https://www.facebook.com/bbcearth/photos/a.138589359507962.19621.118883634811868/1071171566249732/?type=3&comment_id=1071329839567238&offset=0&total_c\" target=\"_blank\">Mudassirul Waris</a> claims that he was brushing his teeth one morning when he became aware of an unusually “funky smell” in his mouth and spat out “what appeared to be the legs of a common house spider”.</p><p>Similarly <a href=\"https://www.facebook.com/bbcearth/photos/a.138589359507962.19621.118883634811868/1071171566249732/?type=3&comment_id=1071196162913939&offset=50&total_comments=379&comment_tracking=%7B%22tn%22%3A%22R9%22%7D\" target=\"_blank\">Paul Dixon</a> recalls a time when he was living in a converted attic. “When I awoke I could feel something in my mouth between my lower teeth and gum so put my finger in and scooped out a small spider,” he says. “It happens.”</p><p>{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p0387dsj\"}}</p><p>If this is making some of you anxious, it’s probably time to bring in <a href=\"https://uk.linkedin.com/in/dave-clarke-9b41263b\">Dave Clarke</a>, head of invertebrates at London Zoo in the UK.</p><p>“Most predators won’t tackle anything bigger than themselves because they are likely to come off worse,” says Clarke. Spiders are highly sensitive to both vibrations and heat so are unlikely to stumble across a human unawares. “They are just not interested in us at all really,” he says.</p><blockquote><p> It has not been possible to confirm the existence of either Holst or the article she is supposed to have written </p></blockquote><p>Clarke’s expert opinion is echoed by <a href=\"https://www.facebook.com/bbcearth/photos/a.138589359507962.19621.118883634811868/1071171566249732/?type=3&comment_id=1071180792915476&offset=50&total_comments=380&comment_tracking=%7B%22tn%22%3A%22R9%22%7D\" target=\"_blank\">Karen Collins</a>’ eight-year-old daughter. “Spiders aren't silly enough to be eaten by us,” she says. “Anyway the snoring will scare them away!”</p><p>As comforting as this is, it seems only reasonable to assume that the odd arachnid will occasionally find itself inside the mouth of an unfortunate human, particularly if we include mites (<a href=\"https://www.facebook.com/bbcearth/photos/a.138589359507962.19621.118883634811868/1071171566249732/?type=3&comment_id=1071273399572882&offset=50&total_comments=380&comment_tracking=%7B%22tn%22%3A%22R9%22%7D\" target=\"_blank\">Jan Tegner </a>and <a href=\"https://www.facebook.com/bbcearth/photos/a.138589359507962.19621.118883634811868/1071171566249732/?type=3&comment_id=1071189622914593&offset=50&total_comments=380&comment_tracking=%7B%22tn%22%3A%22R9%22%7D\" target=\"_blank\">Sabine Lafazani</a>). But how often might this be happening?</p><p><a href=\"https://www.facebook.com/bbcearth/photos/a.138589359507962.19621.118883634811868/1071171566249732/?type=3&comment_id=1071202682913287&offset=200&total_comments=380&comment_tracking=%7B%22tn%22%3A%22R9%22%7D\" target=\"_blank\">Craig Beattie</a> has heard that the average accidental, nocturnal consumption of spiders is seven per year. <a href=\"https://www.facebook.com/bbcearth/photos/a.138589359507962.19621.118883634811868/1071171566249732/?type=3&comment_id=1071536799546542&offset=150&total_comments=379&comment_tracking=%7B%22tn%22%3A%22R3%22%7D\" target=\"_blank\">Ann Aylmer</a> agrees that it’s seven, but reckons this is the number of spiders we swallow in a lifetime. No, say <a href=\"https://www.facebook.com/bbcearth/photos/a.138589359507962.19621.118883634811868/1071171566249732/?type=3&comment_id=1071245626242326&\" target=\"_blank\">Sara Winardi</a>, <a href=\"https://www.facebook.com/bbcearth/photos/a.138589359507962.19621.118883634811868/1071171566249732/?type=3&comment_id=1071341506232738&offset=200&total_comm\" target=\"_blank\">Janelle Loader</a>, <a href=\"https://www.facebook.com/bbcearth/photos/a.138589359507962.19621.118883634811868/1071171566249732/?type=3&comment_id=1071201109580111&offset=200&total_comments=379&comment_tr\" target=\"_blank\">Bobbi O’Dwyer</a>, <a href=\"https://www.facebook.com/bbcearth/photos/a.138589359507962.19621.118883634811868/1071171566249732/?type=3&comment_id=1071172209583001&offset=0&total_comments=379&comment_tracking=\" target=\"_blank\">Susie Que</a> and <a href=\"https://www.facebook.com/bbcearth/photos/a.138589359507962.19621.118883634811868/1071171566249732/?type=3&comment_id=1071254169574805&offset=50&total_comments=379&comment_tracking=%257B%2522tn%2522%25\" target=\"_blank\">Adalia Kroblen:</a> the correct statistic is eight in a lifetime. <a href=\"https://www.facebook.com/bbcearth/photos/a.138589359507962.19621.118883634811868/1071171566249732/?type=3&comment_id=1071323742901181&offset=250&total_comments=379&com\">Jon Parker</a> is not buying any of this: “How on Earth would we know?”</p><p>{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p0387dy7\"}}</p><p>Indeed, the specificity of these claims is more than a little suspicious.</p><p>According to <a href=\"https://www.facebook.com/bbcearth/photos/a.138589359507962.19621.118883634811868/1071171566249732/?type=3&comment_id=1071172522916303&offset=250&total_comments=380&comment_tracking=%7B%22tn%22%3A%22R9%22%7D\" target=\"_blank\">Kenneth Knutsen</a>, such assertions originate from a PC Professional article published in 1993 in which columnist Lisa Holst made up bogus “facts” to demonstrate the gullibility of email recipients. “In a delicious irony,” writes Knutsen, “Holst’s propagation of this false ‘fact’ has spurred it into becoming one of the most widely-circulated bits of misinformation to be found on the internet.”</p><p>But Knutsen may not have the last word on irony.</p><p>The idea that Lisa Holst is the originator of the spider statistic is reported in <a href=\"http://www.snopes.com/science/stats/spiders.asp\" target=\"_blank\">an article on snopes.com</a>, a website dedicated to clearing up internet rumours and urban legends. As yet, however, it has not been possible to confirm the existence of either Holst or the article she is supposed to have written, raising the ironic possibility that snopes.com might need to shine a light on itself.</p>","BusinessUnit":"worldwide","CalloutBody":"","CalloutPosition":"","CalloutSubtitle":"","CalloutTitle":"","Campaign":null,"Collection":[],"DisableAdverts":false,"DisplayDate":"2015-11-17T07:00:00Z","Geolocation":null,"HeadlineLong":"Is it true that we swallow spiders when we sleep?","HeadlineShort":"Do we really eat spiders at night?","HideRelated":false,"Horizontal":null,"Intro":"No one seems to know for sure whether we regularly swallow spiders in our sleep, but our readers’ experiences suggest it can happen sometimes","IsSyndicated":true,"Latitude":"","Location":null,"Longitude":"","Option":[],"Partner":null,"PrimaryVertical":"wwearth","Programme":null,"RelatedStory":null,"RelatedTag":[],"StoryType":"image","SummaryLong":"No one seems to know for sure whether we 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class="primary-heading" role="heading">'Pirate spiders' make a living by preying on other spiders</h1> </div> </div> <div class="secondary-header-wrapper"> <div id="bbccom_sponsor_section_4" class="bbccom_slot" aria-hidden="true"> <div class="bbccom_advert"> <script type="text/javascript"> /*<![CDATA[*/ if (window.bbcdotcom && bbcdotcom.slotAsync) { bbcdotcom.slotAsync('sponsor_section', [4], false, 'IN ASSOCIATION WITH'); } /*]]>*/ </script> </div> </div> </div> </div> </div> </div>  <div id="story-content" class="page-component-wrapper standard article-content">  <div class="primary-content" role="main"> <div class="mpu-wrapper"> <div id="bbccom_mpu_1_2_3" class="bbccom_slot" aria-hidden="true"> <div class="bbccom_advert"> <script type="text/javascript"> /*<![CDATA[*/ if (window.bbcdotcom && bbcdotcom.slotAsync) { bbcdotcom.slotAsync('mpu', [1,2,3]); } /*]]>*/ </script> </div> </div> </div> <div class="clearfix"> <div id="bbccom_sponsor_section_1_2_3" class="bbccom_slot" 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gelicon--google-plus"></span> </span> <span class="share-item-text">Share on Google+</span> </a> </div> </li> <li class="share-item"> <div class="share-item-lining"> <a class="share-button email" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20170817153358/mailto:/?subject=Shared from BBC:'Pirate%20spiders'%20make%20a%20living%20by%20preying%20on%20other%20spiders&body=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.bbc.com%2Fearth%2Fstory%2F20170608-pirate-spiders-make-a-living-by-preying-on-other-spiders%3Focid%3Dww.social.link.email" data-share-destination="email" data-tracking-id="email" target="_blank"> <span class="share-icon-wrapper share-icon-wrapper--social"> <span class="icon gelicon--mail"></span> </span> <span class="share-item-text">Share by Email</span> </a> </div> </li></ul> </div> </div>   <div class="mid-unit"> </div>   <div class="bottom-unit"> <div class="byline"> <span class="byline-heading"></span> <div class="source-attribution-wrapper"> <div class="source-attribution-detail"> <ul class="seperated-list source-attribution"> <li class="seperated-list-item source-attribution-author"><span class="index-body">By Zoe Cormier</span></li> </ul> <span class="publication-date index-body">14 June 2017</span> </div> </div> </div> <div class="body-content"> <p>Build a web, catch a fly, wrap the fly in silk, then devour at leisure. This hunting strategy has proven so effective that orb-weaving spiders are one of the most successful groups of animals. They are found in almost every corner of the world and there are more than 3,000 species.</p><p>Making a web is a fairly sophisticated ploy. As well as multiple forms of silk and glue, the spider needs to perform a sequence of precise manoeuvres.</p><p>But why bother building your own web, when you can just invade somebody else's and devour the architect?</p><p>A clandestine group of spiders known as "pirates" have adopted this nefarious method of nabbing their prey. Their hunting strategies are among the most remarkable in the animal kingdom.</p><p><div class="inline-media inline-image"> <a data-replace-url="" data-anchor-title="An unidentified pirate spider (Credit: Christopher Johnson, Insects Unlocked, CC by 1.0)" data-caption="An unidentified pirate spider (Credit: Christopher Johnson, Insects Unlocked, CC by 1.0)" data-caption-title="" data-replace-image="true" data-is-portrait="false" class="replace-image" title="An unidentified pirate spider (Credit: Christopher Johnson, Insects Unlocked, CC by 1.0)" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20170817153358/http://ichef.bbci.co.uk/wwfeatures/wm/live/624_351/images/live/p0/55/9x/p0559x5w.jpg"> View image of An unidentified pirate spider (Credit: Christopher Johnson, Insects Unlocked, CC by 1.0) </a></div></p><p>Pirate spiders are members of <strong><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20170817153358/http://eol.org/pages/8819/overview">the spider group</a></strong> that includes all the "orb weavers" – those that make the prototypical, circular webs we are all familiar with – but they do not make webs.</p><p>In fact, they have lost the ability. They can still produce silk, which they use to build egg sacs and wrap prey. But they are anatomically incapable of spinning a web. The number of silk "spigots" on their spinnerets is dramatically small compared to their relatives.</p><p>Instead, they invade the webs of other spiders, in a bid to lure and then kill the hapless architect. Gently, they pluck the strings of the web, enticing the host to approach.</p><p>Once the host spider has ventured close enough, the pirate makes its move.</p><p>First, it encloses its duped prey within its two enormous front legs. These are fringed with massive spines, called "macrosetae", which they use to trap the host within a prison-like basket.</p><p>Then, the final move: the pirate bites its prey and uses its fangs to inject a powerful venom that instantly immobilises it.</p><p>It is a powerfully effective hunting technique.</p><p>"It can be riveting to watch a pirate stealthily wandering while waving its long, first pair of legs to narrow in on the location of the other spider," says <strong><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20170817153358/http://www.unh.edu/research/staff-directory/townley-mark">Mark Townley</a></strong> of the University of New Hampshire. "Despite many hours spent feeding pirates for our studies on spinnerets, I never became jaded by the sight of them searching for and attacking prey. It was always a marvel to watch. They can wield that first pair of legs so delicately that I've seen them touch prey spiders so lightly without them reacting in any way, not seeming to even notice."</p><p>But we do not yet fully understand how the pirate's strategy works.</p><p><div class="inline-media inline-image"> <a data-replace-url="" data-anchor-title="A furrow spider (Larioniodes cornutus) on its web (Credit: Nick Upton/naturepl.com)" data-caption="A furrow spider (Larioniodes cornutus) on its web (Credit: Nick Upton/naturepl.com)" data-caption-title="" data-replace-image="true" data-is-portrait="false" class="replace-image" title="A furrow spider (Larioniodes cornutus) on its web (Credit: Nick Upton/naturepl.com)" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20170817153358/http://ichef.bbci.co.uk/wwfeatures/wm/live/624_351/images/live/p0/55/9x/p0559x42.jpg"> View image of A furrow spider (Larioniodes cornutus) on its web (Credit: Nick Upton/naturepl.com) </a></div></p><p>In particular, it is not clear why the pirate spiders pluck the strings of the host spider's web.</p><p>It has long been assumed that the plucking mimics the vibrations caused by an ensnared insect. Hence the Latin name for pirate spiders: <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20170817153358/http://eol.org/pages/210/overview">Mimetidae</a>, or "imitator".</p><p>However, not all entomologists agree that this is what the pirate spiders are doing.</p><p>"The behaviour of resident spiders towards pirate spiders and their own prey is quite different, as are the vibrations in the web caused by these two sources," says <strong><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20170817153358/http://www.csub.edu/~ckloock/">Carl Kloock</a></strong> of California State University Bakersfield.</p><p>He has an alternative suggestion. "It seems to me most likely that pirate spiders are mimicking the vibrations of web-invading spiders of the same species, and possibly spiders of different species," says Kloock. "A spider on its web needs to defend its web – a valuable resource – from other spiders, who may try to take over the web to avoid the cost of building their own web, or simply try to steal prey from the web."</p><p>"These encounters follow a pretty simple pattern, where the spiders signal at one another, then slowly approach each other, usually until the smaller spider gives up and flees the web.</p><p>"I think what the pirate spiders are doing is basically sending a deceptive signal representing themselves as small web invaders that refuse to flee, drawing the resident closer and closer until they are within attack range," Kloock adds. </p><p>Then there is the matter of pirate spider venom, which has evolved to be extremely toxic towards other spiders, including members of their own species, but not towards other animals.</p><p>"Once another spider has been bitten it ceases to move, whereas fruit flies may struggle for several minutes," says <strong><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20170817153358/https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Dan_Mott">Daniel Mott</a> </strong>of Texas A&M International University. "Their toxins appear to be very specific to other spiders."</p><p>Why, and how, could such a strange hunting strategy evolve?</p><p>The first problem is that the prey spiders are also predators, equipped with fangs and venom. This means they are more dangerous than, say, beetles or flies, and also less abundant.</p><p>Secondly, pirate spiders are specialist predators. While they do sometimes feast on other prey, their main source of food is always spiders. By comparison, most orb-weaving spiders are generalist predators, eating whatever wanders into their web.</p><p>In fact, pirates are not even capable of capturing other spiders without the web to stand on.</p><p>"In the lab, if you put an orb weaver into a jar but don't allow it to spin a web, the pirate spider will not attack it," says <strong><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20170817153358/https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Danilo_Harms">Danilo Harms</a></strong> of the University of Hamburg in Germany. "It needs a web in order to capture another spider."</p><p>Somehow, the ancestors of pirate spiders both lost the ability to weave their own webs, and became predators of other spiders to boot.</p><p><div class="inline-media inline-image"> <a data-replace-url="" data-anchor-title="A pirate spider (Ero sp.) on another spider's web (Credit: Stephen Dalton/naturepl.com)" data-caption="A pirate spider (Ero sp.) on another spider's web (Credit: Stephen Dalton/naturepl.com)" data-caption-title="" data-replace-image="true" data-is-portrait="false" class="replace-image" title="A pirate spider (Ero sp.) on another spider's web (Credit: Stephen Dalton/naturepl.com)" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20170817153358/http://ichef.bbci.co.uk/wwfeatures/wm/live/624_351/images/live/p0/55/9w/p0559wsf.jpg"> View image of A pirate spider (Ero sp.) on another spider's web (Credit: Stephen Dalton/naturepl.com) </a></div></p><p>Harms says the most plausible explanation is that it began with thievery. Pirate spiders' ancestors may have started invading the webs of other spiders, in order to steal the insects that the host had painstakingly trapped, poisoned and stored.</p><p>This filching behaviour has a colourful name: "kleptoparasitism".</p><p>Some of the proto-pirates could have then taken this tactic to the next level, by preying on the host spiders themselves. Over time, they would then have become increasingly specialised for capturing other spiders: evolving unusually long front legs, sophisticated web-plucking behaviours, and spider-specific venom.</p><p>This idea has been dubbed the "kleptoparasitism-origin hypothesis".</p><p>Whatever the reason for their quirky behaviour, pirate spiders are highly successful. Scientists have formally described more than 160 species, and they are found on every continent except Antarctica.</p><p><div class="inline-media inline-image"> <a data-replace-url="" data-anchor-title="The egg sac of a pirate spider (Ero sp.) (Credit: Alex Hyde/naturepl.com)" data-caption="The egg sac of a pirate spider (Ero sp.) (Credit: Alex Hyde/naturepl.com)" data-caption-title="" data-replace-image="true" data-is-portrait="false" class="replace-image" title="The egg sac of a pirate spider (Ero sp.) (Credit: Alex Hyde/naturepl.com)" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20170817153358/http://ichef.bbci.co.uk/wwfeatures/wm/live/624_351/images/live/p0/55/9w/p0559wyk.jpg"> View image of The egg sac of a pirate spider (Ero sp.) (Credit: Alex Hyde/naturepl.com) </a></div></p><p>"We know a little bit about the biology of a tiny fraction of pirate spiders, but for most of the species we know literally nothing about their life history and behaviour," says <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20170817153358/https://scholar.google.co.uk/citations?user=fJnwKXsAAAAJ&hl=en">Gustavo Hormiga</a> of George Washington University. "For example, virtually nothing is known about the biology of the beautifully bizarre South American tropical pirate spiders of the genus <em>Gelanor</em>."</p><p>In this genus, the males' pedipalps – modified legs, which they use for inseminating females – are twice the length of the male's body. It may be that this allows them to inseminate females from a distance. "In all other spiders, copulation requires that both partners are close to each other," says Hormiga. Mating at a distance would be a useful precaution, as pirate spiders are aggressive, possess potent venom, and are primed to prey on other arachnids, including their own kind.</p><p>But they also have a gentler side.</p><p>In <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20170817153358/http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/cla.12174">a study</a> published in November 2016 in the journal <em>Cladistics</em>, Hormiga and his student <strong><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20170817153358/https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Ligia_Benavides_Silva">Ligia Benavides</a> </strong>described five new species. Their study also featured the first report of female pirate spiders caring for their young.</p><p>Maternal care is relatively common in spiders. Some merely regurgitate prey for their young, while others go as far as allowing their spiderlings to feast upon their corpse. But maternal care had never been seen in the seemingly "nasty" pirate spiders.</p><p>"In the field, we observed females of <em>Mimetus</em>, <em>Anansi</em> and <em>Ero</em> taking care of eggs and spiderlings. Pirates can be good mothers," says Benavides. "In some instances, females had their eggs distributed evenly in a small web on the underside of a leaf. But if I moved a web or touched the spider, she would gather all the eggs or spiderlings quickly, create a ball with them, and carry them away in order to protect them."</p><p>Pirate spiders are clearly a tale unto themselves. However, their habit of imitating prey in order to devour another spider – an act known as "aggressive mimicry" – is not unique to them. It has evolved in arachnids independently at least twice before.</p><p><div class="inline-media inline-image"> <a data-replace-url="" data-anchor-title="A jumping spider (Portia schultzi) (Credit: Premaphotos/naturepl.com)" data-caption="A jumping spider (Portia schultzi) (Credit: Premaphotos/naturepl.com)" data-caption-title="" data-replace-image="true" data-is-portrait="false" class="replace-image" title="A jumping spider (Portia schultzi) (Credit: Premaphotos/naturepl.com)" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20170817153358/http://ichef.bbci.co.uk/wwfeatures/wm/live/624_351/images/live/p0/55/9w/p0559wn0.jpg"> View image of A jumping spider (Portia schultzi) (Credit: Premaphotos/naturepl.com) </a></div></p><p>There is a genus of jumping spiders known as <em><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20170817153358/http://eol.org/pages/114428/overview">Portia</a></em>. These spiders also mimic prey, pluck the webs of unlucky host spiders, and devour them.</p><p>Like other jumping spiders, <em>Portia</em> spiders have enormous eyes and mostly rely on vision to seek out their prey. In contrast, pirates seem to rely more on their sense of touch. In the lab, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20170817153358/http://www.jstor.org/stable/3705341">covering their eyes with paint</a> does little to hinder their attacks on other spiders.</p><p>Pirates and <em>Portia</em> spiders are fairly recent evolutionary developments. However, "pelican spiders" also feast on other arachnids – and they are so ancient, they pre-date the evolution of winged insects.</p><p>Pelican spiders owe their nickname to their phenomenally large jaws (technically "chelicerae") and elongated necks. Formally known as <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20170817153358/http://eol.org/pages/8818/overview">Archaeidae</a>, they are also sometimes called "assassin spiders".</p><p>With one chelicera they spear their prey. With the other, they inject the dangling, impaled spider with venom.</p><p>Pelican spiders have always preyed on other spiders – unlike the mimetids, which evolved from web-spinning spiders. They were first discovered from fossilised specimens in 1854, according to Harms, before living specimens were found in Madagascar in 1881.</p><p>"So, if you are older than the radiation of insects, what could you eat? Potentially other spiders," says Harms. "That's why they have such strange morphology."</p><p>Strange as it may seem, for some spiders feasting on the flesh of their spidery cousins is a great way to make a living.</p><p><em>Never miss a moment. 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