Ant - slayer spiders ( Euryopis umbilicata ) are the acrobats of the arachnid world . Found in eastern Australia , they spend the day hiding under the barque of eucalyptus tree trees before coming out to hunt in the twilight . Unlike otherspider species , they do not interweave a web to catch their quarry – they have a much more dynamical search strategy .
face towards the ground on a Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree trunk , they lie in hold for their target : the banded sugar pismire ( Camponotus consobrinus ) that also come onto the eucalyptus trees to forage in the eventide . Theantsare around twice the body length of their marauder but with a interchangeable good deal .
As thespiderswait , they attach a credit line of silk to the trunk of the tree . Then , as the ant approaches , they opt their second to leap into the air , hang back more sticky silk behind them and over the unsuspecting ant . The spider can go from a dead end to a Georgia home boy fastness of 25.47 centimeter per 2nd ( 10 column inch per second ) within milliseconds .
The spider then drops off the tree diagram , but is still attached by the silk line to both the quarry and the trunk of the tree . After the attack stage , the wanderer encircle the ant , embroil it in more silk before biting and run it away to eat .
The researcher observe this behavior 60 times , noting that all 51 of the ants that were successfully caught by the spider in the first bounce were then captured and subsequently consumed . That makes this hunting technique extremely successful , with an 85 percent target capture success charge per unit .
Furthermore , despite their daredevil stunting , the squad never saw a wanderer injured or bolt down during the hunting process . Other species specialize in catching pismire , such as the feather - legged assassin hemipteron ( Ptilocnemus lemur ) have only a 2.5 percentage charge per unit of successful capture . The ant - slayer wanderer also far surpass apex predators such as king of beasts and cheetah that have a success rate of less than 50 percent .
The team suggests that the key part of the hunt scheme is down to the behavioral preciseness of the spider leap within a few msec , combined with the deployment of the silk to capture the emmet . Unsuccessful attacks can be observed below .
extremely specialized diet like that of the ant - killer wanderer are rare , as only around 0.3 percent of known wanderer species provender on ants – to specify further to just one species is improbably strange among predatory mintage . Researchers plan to study more into how the spider are capable to spot their prey while keep off recognition themselves . The team also plans to research themechanics of the spidermovement that allows their acrobatic hunting style to take place .
The paper is published inPNAS .
