How Do Spiders Help Each Other?
WouterMany species of spiders are found in a wide variety of habitats. Some live on the ground, while others occupy trees. There are also some spiders that build webs to catch prey. These creatures often take on nuisance pests and regularly capture insects that carry disease.
Many of the species that inhabit the planet are solitary, meaning they don’t form communities. However, there are some spider species that are social, meaning they form colonies.
Social spiders typically eat flies and moths. They can eat hundreds of times more biomass than they would alone. It is thought that they use their synchronized approach to attack and synchronize the motion of their legs toward the prey. This is called matriphagy, which provides nutrition for the next generation.
Social spiders are extremely inbred. In many species, females outnumber males by 10 to one. A female may choose to lay her eggs on a colony, which reduces the genetic diversity within the colony.
Colonies can be found in tropical and temperate regions. They work together to capture and incapacitate their prey. The largest colonies take down bats and birds.
Spiders that hunt in packs have been shown to catch their prey up to 700 times heavier than if they had gone after it on their own. This is because their attack is synchronized by the vibrations of the web. Their movement also extends the amount of time they have to catch their prey.
Researchers believe that the spiders came together because of a perfect storm of weather conditions. The weather caused an overabundance of small insects.
