Uncommon Descent Serving The Intelligent Design Community
Topic

spiders

What has information theory to say about talking to spiders?

There's a way we can do that, provided the spider has anything to say. One of the presentations at the American Chemical Society’s Spring 2021 meeting featured an algorithm that makes music from the analysis of spiders’ webs. Read More ›

If spiders are as intelligent as many vertebrates …

… and it appears that they are, what is the role of the brain in mediating intelligence? Spiders have rather different brains from vertebrates; much simpler, for one thing: Ronald R. Hoy, Cornell University professor of neurobiology and behavior, considers the spider “one of the smartest of all invertebrates.” But while its behavior is comparable to that of many vertebrates, its anatomy is not: “Dr. Hoy and his colleagues wanted to study jumping spiders because they are very different from most of their kind. They do not wait in a sticky web for lunch to fall into a trap. They search out prey, stalk it and pounce. “They’ve essentially become cats,” Dr. Hoy said. And they do all this with Read More ›

Half-billion-year-old predator is the mother of all spiders?

Researcher: "Evidence is converging towards picturing the Cambrian explosion as even swifter than what we thought," says Aria. "Finding a fossil site like the Burgess Shale at the very beginning of the Cambrian would be like looking into the eye of the cyclone." Read More ›

Spiders mimic two different ant types while growing (but secretly signal spidery mates)

Yeah, the story does sound like as plotline from Saturday night with popcorn at the old Downtown Grand but… From ScienceDaily: Viewed from above, the mimics look like skinny, three-segmented ants to fool predators. But in profile, the adult mimics retain their more voluptuous and alluring spider figure to woo nearby mates. UC researchers presented their findings in January at the Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology conference in Tampa, Fla. Most birds avoid ants and their painful stingers, sharp mandibles and habit of showing up with lots of friends. Try to eat one and you’re likely to get chewed on by 10 more. That’s why nearly every insect family from beetles to mantises has species that mimic ants. By Read More ›

Move over, mammals. Spiders provide milk for their young too

Researchers knew that jumping spider (Toxeus magnus) young didn’t leave the nest for twenty-one days and adults were not observed to bring back food for them. So they checked it out: They looked more closely and noticed that the mother was secreting a liquid from its upper abdomen onto the surface of the nest, which the spiderlings ate. After a week, the spiderlings sucked the milk directly from the mother. Even though they were able to leave the nest and feed themselves after 20 days, they continued suckling the milk for another 18 days. If these were humans, they’d be featured on a cable TV program. Once the spiderlings matured, the mother attacked the males that returned while females were Read More ›