Tag Archives: spiders

Most people hear “brown recluse” and think of hospital visits and horror stories. A Kansas family lived in a house with more than two thousand of these spiders for five and a half years, and nobody was bitten. A study documented 2,055 brown recluses collected or killed in a single Lenexa, Kansas home over six months, with zero confirmed bites …

They may send shivers down the spine of arachnophobes, but not all spiders are the stuff of nightmares. From dazzling dancers no bigger than a grain of rice, to velvet-coated rarities that look more like toys than terrors, these eight-legged wonders prove that beauty comes in the most unexpected forms. Here are some of the world’s prettiest – and most …

Get the free Morning Headlines email for news from our reporters across the world Sign up to our free Morning Headlines email Sign up to our free Morning Headlines email The unusual DNA of a particular type of spider is fascinating scientists, as they think it may hold the key to diverse evolution across the world we live in. Australia’s …

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 …

A mysterious fungus is turning spiders into real-life ‘zombies,’ consuming their organs and taking control of their behavior. Known as Gibellula attenboroughii, the fungus attaches to the spider, invades its body and devours it from the inside out. It then manipulates the spider’s brain chemistry, altering dopamine levels to force the insect out of its web and into the open, …

A fascinating study published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) reveals a groundbreaking discovery about the feeding behavior of sea spiders in methane-rich ecosystems off the coast of Southern California. Marine biologist Shana Goffredi and her team have uncovered a new survival strategy that enables these tiny, translucent arachnids, identified as Sericosura, to thrive in one of …

A dull stretch of silty seafloor off Southern California hides a surprise that would fit on a pencil eraser. Here, three new sea spiders in the genus Sericosura have learned to live on the greenhouse gas methane, thanks to a cloak of bacteria that carpets their limbs. The work comes from marine biologist Shana Goffredi at Occidental College, whose team …

UGA research shows invasive species of spiders in Georgia may also be cannibals  WSB-TV Source link

Image credits: X/@PondManUK While many are understandably scared of snakes, what most seem to be terrified of are little, crawling creatures called spiders. Now it seems these crawlers were swimming in good ole waters before adapting to land and engaging in a never-ending game of I-spy with humans.According to the analysis of an “exquisitely preserved” fossil that existed 500 million …