Tiny spider launching

The tiny spider, often living in Israel's Negev desert, can take down an ant that is four times the size of them.

Zodarian cyrenaicum spiders , about 3mm long, often hunt and defeat creatures larger than them many times, including ants 17mm long. This shows that size is not an important issue in the natural world.

Dr. Stano Pekár and colleagues at Masaryk University (Czech Republic) observed the natural prey and prey behavior of ants eating Zodarion cyrenaicum in the Negev desert in Israel in natural and laboratory conditions. experience. This spider species mainly feeds on ants Messor arenarius .

The team found that the adult female spider usually catches large Messor arenarius ants, while mature spiders tend to hunt smaller ants. But in all cases, spiders are much smaller than their prey.

The strategy of spider Zodarion cyrenaicum is to bite into the abdomen to paralyze prey

Zodarian cyrenaicum spiders are always hunting alone and they paralyze their prey with a single bite. Previous research by Dr. Pekár shows that the hunting strategy of adult female spiders is to attack ants from behind, then quickly retreat to avoid being countered by prey.

In the current study, Dr. Pekár shows that the hunting strategy of the new spider is different from that of adult females. Because of their small size, they can climb on an ant's back and bite into the prey's belly to avoid being countered.

Adult anteater spider venom is 50 times larger than the larger new spider. However, the toxin secreted by adult spiders is only twice as effective as the adult spider. This suggests that Zodarian cyrenaicum spider venom has been effective since immature period.

Adult spiders have a much higher rate of predatory hunting because they can release more toxins into the prey.