Is It An Ant? Is It A Plant? No, It's A Spider!
Published:07 Jun.2023 Source:Cell Press
A species of tiny, colorful jumping spider employs two lines of defense to avoid being eaten: camouflaging with plants and walking like an ant. Researchers report May 17th in the journal iScience that this combination of camouflage and movement mimicry helps the spiders evade spider-eating spiders but does not deter hungry praying mantises.
To understand how ant-mimicry helps these spiders avoid being eaten, the researchers collected wild ant-mimicking spiders from four geographic locations in southern Hainan, China, and brought them back to the lab. For comparison, they also collected another type of jumping spider that doesn't mimic ants, as well as five co-occurring ant species that they thought might serve as models.
When the predators were given the choice of the ant-mimicking spider and the other jumping spider, the predatory spider was more likely to attack the non-mimic; out of 17 trials, the spider launched 5 attacks, all of which were towards the non-mimic. Praying mantises, however, attacked both prey species with equal alacrity. This difference might be driven by each predator's likelihood of being injured from eating an ant. The praying mantises are much larger than their prey, so they can get away with eating spiny ants without risking grave injury, but this is not the case for the predatory spiders.