A newly discovered species of spider from Australia has been found to use a unique spring-loaded, cone-shaped death trap to catch its prey. The spider, nicknamed the “ballista spider,” uses its silk to craft the trap, which catapults the prey into the spider’s main web.
How the Trap Works
The trap is triggered when a foraging tree ant bites the base of the trap, causing the silk tethers to release and the structure to hurl the ant upward. This feat of arachnid engineering has never previously been observed.
Scientists recently discovered that this trap was the work of a spider from the rainforest of North Queensland. The spider has gangly, orange limbs and a greenish-yellow body measuring about 0.2 inches long. It belongs to the genus Propostira but has yet to receive a species name.
The snare is perhaps most effective because it releases energy so rapidly that, relative to its size, it produces thousands of times more power than muscle can generate. The ballista spider is the only known spider to hunt just one species of prey, the green tree ant.
Original reporting: KEYT (Ventura/Santa Barbara) — read the source article.
