MetaFilter posts tagged with Spider

°oOOo°

elgilito — Sat, 20 Apr 2013 15:24:06 -0800

Jumping spider watching you, jumping spider watching you (again), mantis eating a fly, mantis eating a fly (again), mantis watching you, mantis watching you (again), ladybird hatching, flies having sex, crane flies having sex, shepherd, WTF is that, WTF is that (again), and a really cute baby hamster. Photographs by David Jobi

It is raining spiders in Brazil.

Blasdelb — Sat, 09 Feb 2013 12:20:13 -0800

"Hundreds (maybe thousands) of spiders congregate between poles in the town of Santo Antonio de Plantina / PR." According to G1 (Portugese), "A biologist who specializes in spiders of the Pontifical Catholic University of Paraná (PUC-PR), Marta Fischer, examined the picture and said that the phenomenon is normal and occurs mainly in the cities of São Paulo. "It is the kind of spider known as Anelosimus Eximius, which are social spiders. They are usually in trees during the day and in the late afternoon and early evening construct a sort of sheet webs, each makes his and then they come together. The goal is to capture insects," she explains, "During the day they destroy the webs to prevent birds do it," concludes Marta, who also said that the venom of this species causes no risks to humans." These spiders work together to take down much larger prey than they could otherwise alone, as David Attenborough beautifully demonstrates on film

Benefits of cooperation with genetic kin in a subsocial spider Interaction within groups exploiting a common resource may be prone to cheating by selﬁsh actions that result in disadvantages for all members of the group, including the selﬁsh individuals. Kin selection is one mechanism by which such dilemmas can be resolved This is because selﬁsh acts toward relatives include the cost of lowering indirect ﬁtness beneﬁts that could otherwise be achieved through the propagation of shared genes. Kin selection theory has been proved to be of general importance for the origin of cooperative behaviors, but other driving forces, such as direct ﬁtness beneﬁts, can also promote helping behavior in many cooperatively breeding taxa. Investigating transitional systems is therefore particularly suitable for understanding the inﬂuence of kin selection on the initial spread of cooperative behaviors. Here we investigated the role of kinship in cooperative feeding. We used a cross-fostering design to control for genetic relatedness and group membership. Our study animal was the periodic social spider Stegodyphus lineatus, a transitional species that belongs to a genus containing both permanent social and periodic social species. In S. lineatus, the young cooperate in prey capture and feed communally. We provide clear experimental evidence for net beneﬁts of cooperating with kin. Genetic relatedness within groups and not association with familiar individuals directly improved feeding efﬁciency and growth rates, demonstrating a positive effect of kin cooperation. Hence, in communally feeding spiders, nepotism favors group retention and reduces the conﬂict between selﬁsh interests and the interests of the group.

More information on the spider:

Social spiders catch larger prey: a study of Anelosimus eximius (Araneae: Theridiidae) During a 1-year-study in tropical Panama, prey of the social theridiid Anelosimus eximius was analysed at two locations and compared with the potential prey spectrum according to sweepnet catches, pitfall traps and bowl traps. Compared with other web-building spiders, A. eximius catch an unusually high number of large insects: about 90% are flying ants, beetles,lepidopterans hemipterans, cockroaches and grasshoppers. This is the result of a communal strategy to overwhelm prey. Webs are maintained commonly, and several spiders attack an entangled insect simultaneously. More spiders participate on insects that are larger and struggle more. The ability to catch large prey insects is discussed as a major driving factor for sociality in spiders. Population genetics of Anelosimus eximius (Araneae, Theridiidae) Anelosimus eximius is a cooperative, group-living neotropical spider. Colonies consist of up to several thousand individuals, and colonies may be aggregated into local colony clusters. The colony clusters are patchily distributed, and are often separated from their neighbors by a km or more. In this study individuals were collected from colonies located in Panama and Suriname. These individuals were subjected to horizontal starch gel electrophoresis and screened for polymorphisms in 46 enzyme systems. A total of 51 scorable loci were found, of which seven were polymorphic. The results were analyzed with Wright's F statistics which were used to investigate the amount of genetic differentiation in the population attributable to subdivision of the population into colonies, colony clusters, local populations and the geographic regions of Panama and Suriname. Most of the genetic differentiation in the A. eximius sampled was due to subdivision of the population into colony clusters and into geographic regions. There was no evidence of differentiation among colonies in a colony cluster, and little differentiation among collection sites within Panama or Suriname. In contrast, within a local population, samples from adjacent colony clusters were sometimes fixed for different alleles at one or more loci, and the Panama and Suriname samples were fixed for different alleles at three loci.

(The spider previously)

Spider of the year 2012!

bibliogrrl — Thu, 17 Jan 2013 14:54:22 -0800

The Meta Bourneti spider is a rare slug eating spider, found throughout the UK and parts of Europe. It lives in complete darkness, and is usually found in caves. It was named European Spider of the Year in 2012. A cluster of them has been found to be living in the pitch black tombs of Highgate Cemetery

I am such a good spider.

kinnakeet — Mon, 14 Jan 2013 14:39:26 -0800

"I'm scratching, and I like to hide." SLYT. NSF arachnophobes.

DO NOT CLICK

Artw — Sat, 12 Jan 2013 11:14:38 -0800

Trust Me, You Do Not Want to See This Video of a Giant Parasitic Worm Slithering Out of a Dead Spider’s Stomach

Wired admires inspired spiders

oulipian — Wed, 19 Dec 2012 11:53:05 -0800

It is common behavior for humans to develop an avatar to present a larger-than-life version of themselves on the web, often as a defense mechanism. For the first time, this activity has been observed in another species.

I Remember Cold Steel Bars & an Inch of Hard Rubber Below As A Kid

Pirate-Bartender-Zombie-Monkey — Fri, 07 Dec 2012 11:05:46 -0800

MONSTRUM believes that playground design should be a reflection of the world surrounding us. We see the world as a place full of colour. We meet boys that like pink and girls that likes climbing trees. Why only play on a monky frame and a sandbox, when you can play in a moon crater or a submarine or a giant spider or an enormous snail or a Trojans horse or a rocket or an ant or a princess castle. The fantasy is infinite.

Arachnophobia

secretdark — Tue, 20 Nov 2012 13:40:02 -0800

Giant. Spider. Puppet. (SLYT) The same puppet, just hanging out.

Testing spiders and gumdrops on Apollo 9

Brandon Blatcher — Sun, 21 Oct 2012 09:28:32 -0800

In March of 1969, Apollo 9 was launched into low earth orbit as critical test for future lunar landings. The Duet of Spider & Gumdrop is a half hour film, set to music from The Yellow Submarine, that publicized highlights of the mission.

Hominid

quiet coyote — Thu, 18 Oct 2012 18:22:54 -0800

In case you were hoping to sleep tonight, there's always Hominid to haunt your dreams (SLVimeo).

Nightmare fuel for wasps

ricochet biscuit — Wed, 10 Oct 2012 12:14:04 -0800

Researchers at Oregon State University have uncovered a unprecedented find: a spider attacking a wasp, both captured in amber (larger image here). The story, published in the journal Historical Biology, details that the attack occurred some 100 million years ago, during the early Cretaceous, in what is now Myanmar. Both the spider and the wasp belong to now-extinct species. The amber fragment also contained the body of another spider in the same web, which may be the oldest evidence yet for social behaviour in spiders.

Mega Shark vs Giant British Spider

Wordshore — Thu, 04 Oct 2012 09:05:48 -0800

Ecologists breed and release swarms of giant fish-eating spiders into the waterways of Britain. The spiders were once common in the area they are being released in, though the same breed of "large fish-eating spider" has conquered parts of Wales. Contextualizing newspaper reports, giant = leg span of less than 3 inches and the fish diet consists of tadpoles, larvae and baby stickleback. There is, as yet, no newspaper comment on the prospect of one or more of the hundred remaining cod in the North Sea being eaten by the spiders.

Sex crazed, but not too picky

Brandon Blatcher — Mon, 17 Sep 2012 13:33:00 -0800

Nature constantly engineers new and creative solutions to all sorts of problems—turning our stereotypes about sex upside-down along the way.

RAWR

lazaruslong — Fri, 24 Aug 2012 15:49:34 -0800

Sometimes, you just have to get the kids and wife together and yell at spiders. "My charge to you is to go out while there are still a few straggling spiders in the yard. Find one in a web and scare the hell out of it. Yell at the top of your lungs. Your neighbors will think you’ve lost your mind, but the joke’s on them because you will know you are enjoying the emerging movement of people who enjoy screaming not because of, but AT arachnids. You’re a pioneer in the sport of Spider Yelling. Yell loudly and yell proudly."

Careful in the morning.

sweetkid — Sun, 05 Aug 2012 18:44:26 -0800

Public Service Announcement About Spiders. Just so you know.

Girl Crisis

zarq — Fri, 22 Jun 2012 10:43:52 -0800

The female bandmembers of Chairlift, Au Revoir Simone, Class Actress, and This Frontier Needs Heroes get together with "an essentially revolving cast of indie Brooklyn sirens, twice a year in a living room in Greenpoint to cover a single, classic song that they learn and arrange right before they perform. Calling themselves Girl Crisis, the group covers a classic (mostly a capella) from a male artist each Winter and a female artist each Summer. The performances are are filmed with a Super 8 camera, are not open to the public and exist only online. Their latest: Leonard Cohen's "Dance Me To The End of Love". (Via) Previous Covers: * Ace of Base: The Sign * Black Sabbath: Paranoid * Chris Isaak: Wicked Game * Jefferson Airplane: White Rabbit * Nirvana: Come As You Are * Sade: Smooth Operator * Taylor Dayne: Tell It To My Heart

Spider silk nanostructure one silly nanometer more amorphous

y2karl — Mon, 07 May 2012 13:01:36 -0800

Untangling the mysteries of spider silk
See also Total X-Ray Scattering of Spider Dragline Silk
See also New internal structure of spider dragline silk revealed by atomic force microscopy.
See also Atomistic model of the spider silk nanostructure

The story of one woman's quest to photograph spider genitalia.

srboisvert — Tue, 01 Nov 2011 16:02:54 -0800

The story of one woman's quest to photograph spider genitalia. By day, Nina is online operations manager for American Medical News, a newspaper published by the American Medical Association. But for 13 years, she’s devoted one day a week to behind-the-scenes work at the Field Museum in Chicago: sorting, identifying, and organizing spiders in the museum’s collections, and in the process turning an enthusiast’s knowledge about arachnids into a slightly demented personal project. ... Most volunteers and students don’t have the “erigo-knowledge” that Nina has gradually built up, while academicians can’t spare time from the molecular work and phylogenetic tree-making that their publications require. So now the arachnid collections of America are benefited by the efforts of an amateur who is weirdly dedicated, relatively knowledgeable—and a little bit insane.

The freezer makes my ice cream hard to scoop. Why try?

swift — Fri, 24 Jun 2011 08:41:14 -0800

The First World Problems Rap (SLYT)

"an important tool for spider hygiene"

bleary — Sat, 11 Jun 2011 07:38:08 -0800

“They’re not aggressive, they’re just defensive, they only ever rear up if they feel threatened, they don’t go looking for trouble,” said Brett. grooming a funnel-web spider (via)

Loom

zarq — Thu, 26 May 2011 09:37:06 -0800

Loom. (SLVimeo) (Youtube version) (Arachnophobes should definitely skip this one.) (Via)

Check out my voodoo mask!

lazaruslong — Thu, 14 Apr 2011 18:57:48 -0800

Excellent footage of the stunningly beautiful yet bizarre courtship and mating behavior of the Peacock Spider.This is quite possibly the first footage of this quality that shows this behavior. Many jumping spiders have elaborate courtship dances. More Previously.

Spiders are wonderful

odinsdream — Mon, 04 Apr 2011 09:39:35 -0800

Spiders are wonderful [via mefi projects]

Tongue Blue

fearfulsymmetry — Wed, 16 Feb 2011 13:19:34 -0800

Blue-Tongue Films are an Australian collective of film makers. They’ve produced a couple of features including Animal Kingdom, for which Jacki Weaver has been nominated for this year's Best Supporting Actress Oscar. You can find a number of their shorts and other works on their Youtube Channel. If you only watch one I'd recommed Spider, but they are all pretty much worth a look. Many NSFW. Podcast interview with the director of Spider, Nash Edgerton about making the short. Previously - I Love Sarah Jane

Jaimie Mantzel's Giant Robot Project

MetaMonkey — Sun, 14 Nov 2010 11:57:37 -0800

Jaimie Mantzel has a dream: The Giant Spider Robot Project. First he needed some infrastructure; a Palacial Megadome (with trampoline floor) in the woods, his own hand made road, a Banana Building, and of course his own lumber mill. He also recently started the Adventure Builders Club for anyone else who likes building stuff. Whole lots more videos in his channel. via