Spiders are cool and effective hunters. They run behind their victims, tend their traps in the ground, camouflaged and lurking among the flowers. But its most refined strategy is undoubtedly to extend a spider web, an ultrasensitive network to vibrations that collects information about the environment and is able to capture and betray the prey stick to it by accident.
But the wise nature has created a nemesis for spiders. There is a creature able to catch them even in their own domains.It is Stenolemus giraffa, or “bug giraffe murderer”, a creature capable of harnessing wind vibrations to infiltrate web spiders and use their legs to avert gradually fine threads of fabric. In a study recently published in Royal Society Open Science, researchers have used lasers to fine discover that indeed the vibrations of these insects murderers are impossible to detect.
“For the spider, this guy must be like the bogeyman,” said National GeographicFernando for Soley, study author and researcher at the University of Costa Rica. “Because when attacked, you can not detect it. It’s scary. ”
These murderous creatures belong to Reduviidae group, a family of specialized creatures to hunt other animals and often after stalking and ambushing. After that, they tend to use their mandibles to pierce and suck inside body of its victims.
Fernando Soley infiltrated the cracks of the rocks of Australia to capture these giraffe bugs. Then he created artificial fabrics spiders and vibrations measured in these with a laser system. And so he watched the careful method of giraffe to infiltrate the fabric, which even took advantage of the wind to go unnoticed bug.
Once the bug is successful in approaching the spider, through a needle-shaped jaw. Then the spider begins to shake, because perhaps the bug has injected a toxin (as said Soley). And the result is a terrible death for the most horrible of hunters.
