Tag Archives: fireflies

Fireflies glow to attract mates. As new research shows, however, a certain species of spider has learned to take advantage of this luminous natural phenomenon. In a Journal of Animal Ecology paper published August 27, ecologists report that the sheetweb spider (Psechrus clavis) appears to exploit firefly luminescence to attract more prey. Observational analysis and lab experiments revealed that, by …

Nocturnal spiders have been filmed capturing fireflies and keeping them in their webs to attract more prey, even intermittently checking on them over the course of an hour, according to a new study. When fireflies were kept on the webs, sheet web spiders attracted significantly more prey than without the bioluminescent beetles, leading researchers to think the spiders are purposefully …