Spider Spins Ant-Repellent Silk

bazzalunatic writes "The common golden orb web spider wards off ants from attacking it on its web by spinning an ant repellent (pyrrolidine alkaloid) into its silk. It could be used to develop a new insect repellent for humans. 'This study is among the first to show animals incorporating a chemical defence as a response to the threat of predation,' says Professor Mark Elgar of the University of Melbourne."

Comments

First animal?

[Anonymous Coward]

Apparently the researcher has never heard of stink bugs, or skunks. As far as I can tell, they also have "a chemical defence as a response to the threat of predation."

Perhaps the researcher meant to refer specifically to spiders, or that the ant-repellant was the first example of chemical use to PREVENT predation, not respond to an individual threat.

Re:First animal?

[Riceballsan]

Perhaps he's meaning this is one of the few cases of pro-active protection. Skunks, stink bugs, squids etc... use chemicals to defend themselves as a fire off at the last second defense, rather then a lace your home with it type of protection.

Females

[JohnConnor]

Old news... Cobwebs at my place have been repelling all kinds of females for a long time, not just my aunts.

Re:Spiderwebs and ants...?

[Dunbal]

A spider will eat one ant. It has trouble coping with thousands or even hundreds of thousands of ants at a time, however. I think the defense mechanism is to avoid the spider getting ambushed by a roving ant army, but any lone ants can be dealt with with the usual efficiency.

Wait I thought Lacewings did this

[NotSoHeavyD3]

Admittedly I can't find it.(My GoogleFu is weak today.) I know they lay their eggs at the end of long threads to protect them. I thought I read somewhere that the threads have a chemical repellent to keep ants away (Since you'd think one tiny ant would just climb down and get it) but I can't find anything on Google confirming that.