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Spider Discovered That Builds Its Own Spider Decoys
OakDragon writes "A newly discovered species of spider — apparently of the genus Cyclosa — has been discovered in the Peruvian Amazon. The spider builds an elaborate decoy out of web, twigs, and other scraps, which appears to be a much larger spider. The spider will even cause the decoy to move, marionette-style, by shaking the web."
it builds a monument of its spider god ? our next overlord
for some reason, the thing I'm marveling at the most is that it knows it has 8 legs. How?!
Why not 6 or 7? ...because 7, 8, 9?
Kinda like the movie Mimic...
Is this the first example of animal art?
Damn nature you scary!
Species are distinguished on the basis of the structure of the male and female genitalia
When I thought that I already knew enough about the job of an arachnologist to stay away from it, I read this. If this also holds true for other insects, it explains quite a lot about Kinsey and his path of professions.
evolution.
Not only did this spider decided it needed a bigger version of itself to scare off would be predators, it knew it had to make it move to look be really effective.
I know people who aren't even this smart.
Be seeing you...
Someone should check if the spiders were doing this before 1996, because I bet they stole the idea from Duke 3D.
There's no -1 for "I don't get it."
that makes miniature models of factories.
because I don't want to live in this planet anymore. We as a human race are losing the war against the evolving arachnids.
I'm going to do the same to ward off other people.
*builds giant man in garden out of wicker*
To do something right, you often have to roll up your sleeves and get busy.
FTFA: Specimens will have to be collected to compare to known species, dissections done on identifying features like the genitalia, and descriptions will have to be written to show why this species is different from others, a type specimen will have to be selected, and the eventual publication of all of that information in a journal. Only then can it be considered a named new species to science.
I am arachnophobic so somebody else will have to do this.
Is does the spider know that what it's built looks like it? This could have evolved to look like a spider from a predators perspective but the spider probably has no idea what its making.
"know" is such a weird word really.
This is old news: http://blogs.cordovasd.org/biology/2010/09/06/duped-by-a-decoy/
...why we are discussing the spider instead of brainstorming ways to wipe them from existence. Seriously, a spider that builds fucking decoys? That exceeds the threshold for me being comfortable with it as a species. And before you scream "you're just prejudice against spiders!" I'll have you know that the day my friend's chow builds a life-size German Shepard in her living room I'll be the first one grabbing for a shotgun. It takes effort to stay on top of the pyramid of edible shit, we can't afford to get complacent.
Why can't we have mechas too?
So say we all
does this too, and it never ends well...
.... take off and nuke it from orbit, it's the only way to be sure.
But what happens when that spider discovers tar, makes an ersatz spider out of it, drinks too much, and fights with it?
In the future, I would want to not be isolated from my friends in the Space Station.
Does it remember to build it with 8 legs? Making an elementary mistake by only including 7 would ruin its value...
But seriously, doesn't it look like that spider has a firmware update that others of it's species are missing? How much storage is in a spider brain anyways? It's not like bears passing on novel learned behaviours to their cubs. The spider could not pass this on to it's offspring. It never even sees them. Is mutation an acceptable mechanism for a behaviour innovation like this? I can't see how this would work. If we were to encounter a device like a spider made of parts we could identify -- microcontroller board, servos, etc. we would assume a development environment somewhere where the thing was prototyped, etc. If the spider were microcontroller based, a stray gamma ray flipping a bit would far more likely freeze the program. But we look at a similar machine, made from biological parts, and. blinded ideologically as we are, we assume it happened by chance. Or is evolution not as blind as has been taught, is it, in fact, the FORCE?
I'm pretty sure the spider has seen other spiders before. Like it's mother and siblings and mates. Or looking in the reflection of water. I'm not knowledgeable enough in arachnid neurology to know the extent of mental awareness of spiders but I'm pretty sure it can make a pretty good guess at what it looks like.
However, if you mean the spider is just putting sticks and debris there in the web out of instinct and puts no conscious effort into it, I may concede that point to you.
Let me know when it writes "radiant" and I'll be impressed
Whatcha looking at bird? You looking at me? You better not be looking at me. Yeah that's right. Keep flying, if you know whats good for you...
So this fake spider might scare off other preys, but wouldn't it also scare off it's food?
-- By all means let's be open-minded, but not so open-minded that our brains drop out.
Spiders don't live long enough to learn much, don't really communicate and generally have a very primitive brain. Primates are the only animals that can recognize themselves in a mirror, so you can be sure that a spider does not know what it looks like.
Can you give an even somewhat reasonable step-by-step Darwinist explanation for this? First, the spider used one twig which didn't look much like an spider but gave it a slight advantage and was then when it learned to do this it encoded the knowledge into its genes.
And by "evolution" I'm going with a pure materialist definition of evolution.
They only look that way because you're looking at dollar figures. What you're not taking into account is the value of the dollar. If you adjust for that, IT wages have been in free fall for over a decade as the value of the dollar plummets. If you're making $60k now, you're making less than someone making $30k in 1997. $80? Not even work the $50k from that time period. Don't believe me? When was the last time you spent $40 for a cart full of groceries? Everything is relative.
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It might be the same reason that Nigerian scamers still say they are from Nigeria: Animals that are scared of big spiders stay away, while insects that ignore spiders get caught by the web.
Dolphins can use mirrors.
While you may be right that this spider doesn't,
is way wrong.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mirror_test#Animal_Species_Capable_of_Passing
Looking for that I also came across this sentence:
Hah, this is now outdated information! Spiders are actually the *first* creature (we know of to date) to post decoys of themselves on the intrawebs, while humans are kinda late to the game.
How do they know that's a decoy? I've seen other spiders that put stuff in their web. I remember a big black and yellow spider in the garden when I was a kid that had something similar. I speculated that it was there to help prevent birds from flying into it and destroying the web. In this case, the spidery appearance of the junk in the web appears to follow from the fact that the junk has been stuck to the strands of the web, which radiate out from the center much like the legs of a spider.
First, this is grossly off-topic.
Second, its also grossly wrong. Adjusted for inflation, $30k in 1997 is equivalent to $43k in 2012. The latest year for which your "$60k now is less than $30k then" is true is 1987.
http://www.27bslash6.com/overdue.html
one or more of the following: - irate baby-mamas - process servers - loan sharks - Jehova's witnesses - the crack spider At least that's the impression that I get from watching this related video
The decoy was built by the creatures in the next bush over. Three poison arrow frogs behind a blind, aiming at the spider coming up behind the decoy.
So are these spiders herbivores? Because otherwise it would seem that having a giant spider decoy hanging in your web would be counter-productive for a carnivorous diet.
Got the creepy crawlies now!