Spider Discovered That Builds Its Own Spider Decoys 119
OakDragon writes "A newly discovered species of spider — apparently of the genus Cyclosa — has been discovered in the Peruvian Amazon. The spider builds an elaborate decoy out of web, twigs, and other scraps, which appears to be a much larger spider. The spider will even cause the decoy to move, marionette-style, by shaking the web."
or maybe (Score:5, Interesting)
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Maybe this is similar how the irratus bug started.
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This Spider is DEFINITELY more intelligent than my neighbour.
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No. It's a monument to evolution because evolution designs everything even though it's not trying to design anything.
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I can't understand the sheer terror some people display at the sight of them.
They're pretty much nature's perfect predator. All of what you've described above is done for the express purpose of killing. It tends to unsettle people. Couple that with the fact that there are many out there the size of a quarter that can kill or severely mess up a human, and you set off a lot of instinctual fear.
It can count... (Score:4, Insightful)
for some reason, the thing I'm marveling at the most is that it knows it has 8 legs. How?!
Why not 6 or 7? ...because 7, 8, 9?
Re:It can count... (Score:5, Funny)
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Wow, you deserve to spend some time at the punitentiary.
Re:It can count... (Score:5, Insightful)
That's just due to selection... by the photographer. There's another picture further down in the article where the decoy only seems to have five legs. But of course the one that looks most like a spider, with eight legs, was selected for the top of the article.
Re:It can count... (Score:5, Funny)
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But the photographer had to show off his business card from Wired.com.
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That's just due to selection... by the photographer. There's another picture further down in the article where the decoy only seems to have five legs. But of course the one that looks most like a spider, with eight legs, was selected for the top of the article.
But maybe those are partial structures? There could be a limit of 8 in most cases.
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Re:It can count... (Score:5, Funny)
Of course the spider can't count. It's just that the spiders who made 6 and 7 legged decoys got eaten by the birds that could count.
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Maybe it's something like that for the spider?
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for some reason, the thing I'm marveling at the most is that it knows it has 8 legs. How?!
Why not 6 or 7? ...because 7, 8, 9?
It could be that through its genetic factors the spider could "know" (in a very low, evolutionary level) how it looks like and thus what kind of thing to replicate.
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A few other posters identified some possible reasons (photographer's preference, etc)
However, a creature (or person) doesn't need to understand a visual object to imitate it. I think it's pretty awesome that it looks so much like a spider, but as an example, someone doesn't need to know what a tree is to know that a Japanese Maple looks vastly different from a Blue Spruce if I see them side by side.
So the spider could make a 5 legged decoy, and 'know' that it looks wrong.
There is also the fact that spiders
Creepy... (Score:2)
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It is not that necessarily that the weaker ones are killed off. But there has to be some advantage to breeding or survival for a mutation to increase in frequency in a population. Otherwise it just gets diluted out. It is possible that if a mutation isn't a disadvantage it could stick around as a lineage and then later thrive when some outside pressure gets put on the species such that it is now an advantage. So it may not need to happen right way, but it does at some point need to be an advantage for t
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This seems to be a complete non-sequitur, unless you're unstated argument is that questions of the form "is X an example of Y" should be answered on the basis of speculative alternative definitions of Y, rather than the actual definition of Y which is the basis of the question.
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It proposes, in its general form, that a question should be answered based on something other than what the words in the question mean, but based on how some other entities who are the subject of the question might define the words; this is aggravated by the fact that the entities in question in the specific framing are ones which we have no reason to believe (and plenty of reason not to believe) have the ability to process the kind of abstract ideas that would let them define a
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If animals defined "art" it'd be totally different
You mean some animals other than humans.
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Then there is no such thing as art.
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No more than a regular spider web is art.
as the saying goes now... (Score:2, Funny)
Damn nature you scary!
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Spiders aren't insects. They are arachnids (both insects and arachnids are arthropods.)
Gotta love (Score:5, Insightful)
evolution.
Not only did this spider decided it needed a bigger version of itself to scare off would be predators, it knew it had to make it move to look be really effective.
I know people who aren't even this smart.
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Spiders that built something that looked like it had two legs survived over those who built one. Eventually those the spider that built eight in the right shape did better at surviving then all the others. It probably didn't happen exactly that way but along those lines.
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What I don't understand, though, is that a big spider hanging in a web is probably likely to scare off not only predators, but prey as well. What self-respecting insect is going to fly straight past a big spider? Surely evolution must have "taught" them by now that where a big spider is floating in mid-air, there's probably a web around it?
And what about predators interested in eating big spiders?
On the other hand, this construction may actually be quite effective in keeping big, clumsy animals like, say, h
Re: Gotta love (Score:2)
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I would say it's more like the decoy is a crowd-control summon.
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You might assume too much about the abilities of flying insects. The bugs around my house can't seem to avoid hitting a wall or myself, much less a nearly invisible web.
Nigerian scam? (Score:2)
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Evolution is not the word you're looking for. The phrase you're looking for is natural selection.
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If it is a learned behaviour then it can not be "encoded ... into its genes". Some spider species care for their young. I do not know about this species in particular, but it is posible that the knowledge could be passed from one generation to the next through example. At any rate, this is either instinctual, a sign of generational (cultural) learning, or a demonstration of the intellect (reasoning skills) of these spiders. All the comments on this forum about ho
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On second thought.... I hope you are further anonymized.
Holoduke (Score:5, Funny)
Someone should check if the spiders were doing this before 1996, because I bet they stole the idea from Duke 3D.
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...as opposed to figuratively rehashing references?
I wouldn't go so far as to call this context-free, as the Holoduke decoy was the first thing that came to mind for me as well. =)
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Unshared context failure is something you'll run into, too. Indeed, you're already running into it, but on the converse side of how one might usually think of it.
What's the general solution? Always link to information about the context? And maybe the linked resource can give brief explanations and in turn link to related memes from other generations and cultures? A kind of inter-cultural / inter-generational meme translator?
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That seems a simplistic response, though, doesn't it? There's a lot of value to be gained in making reference to a similar subject, at least in that the referenced subject can serve as an example of how such things might tend to be. Also it serves to clarify, where a more abstract description might be hard for people to understand. I think I'm saying something constructive here, but it might be hard for you to grasp. Drawing parallels to something else could make it much easier for you to get. But, yea
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There may be an excess of references meaningful only to small ingroups. And that is certainly worthy of fighting against. (And I mean small ingroups inside the already small audience of geeks interested in cutting-edge stuff.)
This particular situation may not be the best to rail against, however. The Duke Nukem 3D references turn out to be valuable within the target audience. (Target audience being all of us computer nerds.)
Like a factory (Score:1)
that makes miniature models of factories.
NASA needs more funding (Score:2)
That's fuckin' awesome! (Score:5, Funny)
*builds giant man in garden out of wicker*
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Re:That's fuckin' awesome! (Score:4, Funny)
"No, that's not our neighbor, that's got three legs."
"He must be compensating."
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I'm going to do the same to ward off other people.
Especially if you build it with the wrong number of limbs.
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Not sure about warding off other people, but I hear it's a really effective method of scaring off crows.
Question i'd like to know the answer to.. (Score:2, Interesting)
Is does the spider know that what it's built looks like it? This could have evolved to look like a spider from a predators perspective but the spider probably has no idea what its making.
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"know" is such a weird word really.
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I'm pretty sure the spider has seen other spiders before. Like it's mother and siblings and mates. Or looking in the reflection of water. I'm not knowledgeable enough in arachnid neurology to know the extent of mental awareness of spiders but I'm pretty sure it can make a pretty good guess at what it looks like.
However, if you mean the spider is just putting sticks and debris there in the web out of instinct and puts no conscious effort into it, I may concede that point to you.
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While you may be right that this spider doesn't,
is way wrong.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mirror_test#Animal_Species_Capable_of_Passing [wikipedia.org]
Looking for that I also came across [omg-facts.com] this sentence:
Hah, this is now outdated information! Spiders are actually the *first* creature (we know of to date) to post decoys of themselves on the intr
What confuses me is... (Score:1)
...why we are discussing the spider instead of brainstorming ways to wipe them from existence. Seriously, a spider that builds fucking decoys? That exceeds the threshold for me being comfortable with it as a species. And before you scream "you're just prejudice against spiders!" I'll have you know that the day my friend's chow builds a life-size German Shepard in her living room I'll be the first one grabbing for a shotgun. It takes effort to stay on top of the pyramid of edible shit, we can't afford to
It's Obvious, really.... (Score:1)
.... take off and nuke it from orbit, it's the only way to be sure.
The spider made itself a mecha! (Score:1)
That Anansi, such a tricksy one! (Score:4, Funny)
Some Pig (Score:2)
Let me know when it writes "radiant" and I'll be impressed
A scarecrow for other spiders? (Score:2)
Actually, they're not flat. (Score:1)
Off-topic and wrong all at once. (Score:2)
First, this is grossly off-topic.
Second, its also grossly wrong. Adjusted for inflation, $30k in 1997 is equivalent to $43k in 2012. The latest year for which your "$60k now is less than $30k then" is true is 1987.
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When TFA is about decoy building spiders, talking about salaries is off-topic!
claim doesn't seem to follow to me (Score:2)
How do they know that's a decoy? I've seen other spiders that put stuff in their web. I remember a big black and yellow spider in the garden when I was a kid that had something similar. I speculated that it was there to help prevent birds from flying into it and destroying the web. In this case, the spidery appearance of the junk in the web appears to follow from the fact that the junk has been stuck to the strands of the web, which radiate out from the center much like the legs of a spider.
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Though I suppose the decoy idea makes sense for avoiding being eaten by birds. In which case this isn't the only species of spider that does that, there is at least one more in North America.
a decoy to avoid (Score:1)
They got it wrong... (Score:1)
Herbivores (Score:1)
Thanks a lot Slashdot! (Score:1)