Researchers Find 5-Millimeter Ballista Spider With 5,000-fps Silk Trap for Ants
Updated
Updated · CNN · Jun 23
Researchers Find 5-Millimeter Ballista Spider With 5,000-fps Silk Trap for Ants
3 articles · Updated · CNN · Jun 23
Summary
Current Biology reported that a 5-millimeter spider from North Queensland builds a cone-shaped silk snare that releases when a green tree ant bites it, flinging the ant into the spider’s main web.
5,000-fps filming showed the trap vanishes between frames because tensioned silk stores energy slowly and releases it almost instantly, generating thousands of times more power than muscle can.
15 to 60 taut lines form each 6-millimeter cone, which appears to target only Oecophylla smaragdina—the green tree ant—making the ballista spider the only known spider specialized on a single prey species.
Researchers think that specialization helps the spider exploit the ant’s aggression while avoiding a swarm, and they are now testing whether pheromones on the silk provoke only green tree ants to attack.