Australian Spider Hunts Ants with Amazing Acrobatics Like 'Spider-Man'

Hunting Success Rate at 85%, Nicknamed 'Ant Killer'
Prey Up to 3 Times Larger Snatched in Just 0.614 Seconds

[Asia Economy Reporter Bang Je-il] Spiders hunt prey using various methods. They sometimes hunt in groups, set traps like webs, and lure prey with pheromones. However, there are insects that even these spiders find difficult to hunt. Those are ants. Ants neutralize spider hunts with their sharp teeth, powerful jaws, and venom.

However, a spider highly skilled at hunting ants was newly discovered in Australia.

On the 19th (local time), according to The New York Times, a research team led by Alfonso Aceves-Aparicio found that an Australian spider belonging to the family Theridiidae hunts ants by wrapping them in webs with a skill as astonishing as the 'Circus of the Sun.'

The spider, scientifically named Euryopis umbilicata, is a species smaller than ants. Professor Alfonso Aceves-Aparicio of the research team happened to pass by a eucalyptus tree and witnessed a spider on a branch catching an ant three times its size with its web.

The ants around this spider disappeared completely from the branch and were later found tied up in the web, hanging from the tree.

To verify this precisely, the research team placed sugar ants on a eucalyptus tree and filmed the scene with a high-speed camera. The result showed that the spider took only 0.614 seconds to tie up the ant on the tree.

In 60 recorded attack scenes, the spider's success rate in capturing ants reached 85%. This is an exceptionally high success rate for hunting ants.

To determine how frequently this spider hunts ants, the research team collected insect carcasses caught in webs in eucalyptus groves. Among 182 carcasses found, 181 were sugar ants.

This ant species is native only to Australia and is named for its preference for sugary foods. The research team nicknamed this spider the 'Ant Killer' for its rapid ability to ensnare sugar ants.

Marie Herbstein, co-author of the paper and professor of behavioral biology at Macquarie University, said, "This spider is like a stuntman in an action movie," explaining, "It repeatedly spun webs like Spider-Man, flipping and attaching ants."

She added, "This spider attacks the ant's jaws and hunts with acrobatic, precise movements," noting, "Its accuracy and success rate are astonishing, and it never makes mistakes during hunting."

Sada Bamla, a professor of biomolecular engineering at Georgia Institute of Technology who studies spiders' high-speed movements, described the spider's hunting method as a "David and Goliath battle," calling spiders "natural engineers that create tools?sticky webs?to hunt prey larger than themselves."

Professor Bamla further stated, "Tools are thought to be skillfully used only by humans and apes, but this spider hunts ants in a completely new way."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.