Arachnids, features and articles | Educational Science

Mar 7, 2022

Spiders hunt in packs of hundreds to swarm prey

Pack hunting spiders exist in places other than your nightmares. While most spiders enjoy solitary lives, 20 of the roughly 50,000 known spider species live in colonies. One species, Anelosimus eximius, lives in extremely large colonies of up to 1,000 individual spiders that work together to build webs spanning several...

Apr 25, 2022

These male spiders use built-in leg catapults to escape sexual cannibalism

For a type of orb-weaving spider, mating has a spectacular finale: The male catapults off a female's body at a speed too fast for a human to see with the naked eye. These amorous acrobatics aren't meant to impress the spiders' partners; rather, a male springs into action to escape...

Apr 26, 2022

What is the largest arachnid to ever live?

The term arachnids likely conjures up visions of spiders: from creepy, crawly things silently spinning webs in the corner of the room to big, hairy creatures with fangs — the likes of the mythical Shelob or Aragog — stalking you in the dark. But just how big (and ferocious) can...

Jun 2, 2022

Male spiders drum out mesmerizing syncopated beats to woo mates

Male wolf spiders (Schizocosa stridulans) that improvise intricate dance moves are big winners in the mating game, wooing females with showstopping tap routines. Now, new research finds that the more complex the dance, the more likely the spiders are to find love. The study researchers found that improvised steps benefited...

Jul 28, 2022

Dead spiders reanimated as creepy 'necrobots'

Taking a dead spider's lifeless body and reanimating it as a robot is an idea that would be the stuff of nightmares for most people. But scientists aren't most people. Recently, a team of researchers turned the corpses of wolf spiders into arcade-style claw machines that could pick up and...

Aug 12, 2022

Sweet dreams, spidey: Arachnids experience REM sleep, and may even dream

Imagine a spider hanging from a silky thread, as still as a corpse, until its eight legs unexpectedly tremble. While this might sound like a horror movie, it's actually a nightly experience for jumping spiders (Evarcha arcuate) who can reach rapid eye movement (REM) sleep, the stage in which most...

Aug 25, 2022

Jumping Spiders' Unique Vision Revealed

Jumping spiders, which hunt by pouncing on their prey, gauge distances to their unsuspecting meals in a way that appears to be unique in the animal kingdom, a new study finds. The superability boils down to seeing green, the researchers found. There are several different visual systems that organisms use...

Oct 14, 2022

Brown Recluse Spiders May Invade Northern U.S. as Planet Warms

Climate change may give America's venomous brown recluse spiders a choice: Move to a more northern state or face dramatic losses in range and possible extinction, a new theoretical study suggests. Currently, brown recluse spiders are found in the interior of roughly the southeastern quarter of the continental United States....

Oct 14, 2022

Rare Discovery: Hook-Legged Spider Found in Oregon Cave

A group of cave explorers and scientists have made a rare discovery: an entirely new taxonomic family of spider in the caves of southern Oregon. Only two other spider families (the taxonomic group above both genus and species) have been found since 1990, and this is the first newly discovered,...

Oct 14, 2022

The Invisible Sex Dance of Psychedelic Spiders

As if dressed for a psychedelic rave, jumping spiders sport glowing patches on their bodies to lure in eight-legged mates, a new study finds. Jumping spiders of both sexes are known for their excellent eyesight, particularly in the ultraviolet wavelengths, and male jumping spiders are equipped with UV-reflecting scales that...

Nov 23, 2022

11 deadliest spiders

Spiders are some of the most successful arthropods on the planet, having colonized every continent except Antarctica. Not all of these eight-legged arachnids are venomous, but some can be deadly to humans. From the notorious black widow to the ultra-deadly funnel web spider, here are some of the deadliest spiders...

Nov 25, 2022

Brown recluse bites caused two people's blood cells to self-destruct

Two people who were bitten by brown recluse spiders developed a rare condition in which their immune systems destroyed their red blood cells, a new case report shows. In the first case, a 30-year-old man came to the hospital because he was nauseous, vomiting, had muscle aches, and had a...

Jan 27, 2023

Sea spiders can regrow their anuses, scientists discover

Sea spiders possess a remarkable, previously unknown ability: They can regrow their rear ends. In a series of experiments, scientists discovered that juveniles from the sea spider species Pycnogonum litorale were able to fully regenerate a number of amputated body parts from their lower body, including hind limbs, parts of...

Mar 14, 2023

Black widows are being slaughtered by their brown widow cousins, and we don't know why

Black widow spiders in the U.S. are being killed off by an unexpected rival: their invasive relatives, but the motivation behind the highly aggressive attacks is not yet clear, a new study finds. The perpetrators, brown widow spiders (Latrodectus geometricus), likely originated in Africa or South America but have since...

Mar 28, 2023

Deadly spiders that can kill in minutes and survive underwater are hiding out in swimming pools

Deadly spiders that can survive underwater for over 24 hours are turning up in people's swimming pools in Australia after parts of the country were hit by heavy rain and floods over the past week. These swimming pool interlopers include funnel-web spiders, which are members of the Araneida family, with...