Some spiders may be trickier prey than we realize. New research published Monday finds that certain spiders can force trapped fireflies to emit signals that attract other male flies looking for love. It’s amazing, but scientists aren’t quite sure how spiders pull off this trick.
Scientists from Huazhong Agricultural University and Hubei University in China led the study, with the aim of ensuring “broad observation” of the study. Araneus ventricosusa type of orb-weaving spider common throughout eastern Asia. One of the scientists noticed that, when these spiders caught Abscondita terminalis with fireflies in their web, insects are almost always male. This difference was possible due to the unique mating strategy of the insects, which uses bioluminescent lights. A. terminalis males use multi-pulse light from their two lanterns to attract females, while females only use pulses from their single lantern to attract males.
The researchers thought that the spiders were somehow attractive on purpose A. terminalis males in their destruction, possibly by controlling light signals from canines that become trapped in their web. To confirm this hypothesis, researchers conducted field experiments in which they observed closely the webs made by spiders that had already captured a male. A. terminalis fireflies.
“The results showed a significant effect: in the presence of the spider, more male fireflies were caught in its web,” researcher Daiqin Li, an environmental biologist in Hubei, told Gizmodo. These spider webs may have had male fireflies emitting the same light signals as the female, using only one bulb. The team’s findings were published on August 19 in the journal Current Biology.
After further investigation, the team found that the spiders appeared to know when their trapped victim was a male firefly, despite their poor eyesight. When the arachnids see, they repeatedly bite the insects. The researchers thought that the spiders were identified by looking at the light from the lights. To test this hypothesis, the team darkened the lights of some fireflies using ink. When these black spiders were caught in the web, the spiders did not bite as they did before, seeming to confirm that the spiders rely on seeing the light of the fireflies to know when the male is ready to bewitch others.
There are still questions about this deceptive love simulation that researchers hope to unearth, such as whether it is the spiders’ bites themselves that compel the fireflies to do their bidding or some ingredient in their pain.
“Several future directions for this research can be explored. First, how the spider controls the signals of male fireflies caught in the trap is unknown. Second, the evolutionary origin of the prey-manipulation system in A. ventricosus they are still unclear. “Although targeting fireflies as prey is not limited to this spider—many records document other firefly-eating spiders—it would be useful to investigate similar systems among other orb-web spiders and firefly predators,” Li said. It’s also possible that spiders and other predators can manipulate and manipulate their prey in ways that haven’t been studied yet, such as using sound or pheromones, he added.
Either way, the findings continue to show the variety of clever and sometimes shocking tactics that many animals use regularly to survive. For our sake, it is good that these spiders are only interested in cheating and eating other invertebrates, not humans.
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