Spiders can be arachnophobic and “nervous” around each other, according to new research.
According to a new study, spiders may display indications of phobia in the company of another larger and perhaps dangerous species, proving that it’s not just humans that are afraid of them.
Scientists tested leaping spiders, known as salticids, for their ability to recognize a static predator and discovered that the critters were afraid by the larger items and backed away in the same manner that people would.
According to Dr. Daniela Roessler – who led the ‘Arachno-Arachnophobia’ study, “Our experiments show that salticids demonstrate a robust, fast, and repeatable ‘freeze and retreat’ behavior when presented with stationary predators, but not similarly sized non-predator objects.”
He added, “Anti-predator responses were triggered by co-occurring and non-co-occurring salticid predators, as well as by 3D-printed salticid models (based on micro-CT scans), suggesting a generalized predator detection/classification.”
On the other hand, Ogre-faced spiders hide during the day and hunt by night, going from Florida palm fronds and making silk nets on insects on the ground and in the air. They are named after their massive eyes. Having an incredible night vision, these spiders can hear their predators and prey.
These spiders use their hair and joint receptors on their legs to pick up sounds from the environment from at least 2 meters away because they have no ears. Spiders can hear low-frequency sounds from insect prey as well as higher frequency sounds from bird predators.
“I think many spiders can actually hear, but everybody takes it for granted that spiders have a sticky web to catch prey, so they’re only good at detecting close vibrations,” says senior author Ron Hoy, professor of neurobiology and behavior at Cornell University. “Vibration detection works for sensing shaking of the web or ground, but detecting those airborne disturbances at a distance is the province of hearing, which is what we do and what spiders do too, but they do it with specialized receptors, not eardrums.”