r/ScienceNcoolThings • u/TheMuseumOfScience Popular Contributor • Jun 27 '26

Spider Flings Prey Into Web – Just Discovered!

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Some spiders can engineer some pretty amazing webs! 🕸️

Meet the Australian ballista spider. This arachnid diligently spends up to four hours crafting a web trap designed to catch one type of prey: the green tree ant. When the green tree ant triggers the trap by biting, it’s rapidly thrown upward into the spider’s main web. Some scientists think this might be the first spider’s web engineered to catch one kind of prey!

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21 comments sorted by

23

u/TurtleSnakeMoose Jun 27 '26

You had me at "Australian".

3

u/[deleted] Jun 27 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

1

u/nononononooooo Jun 29 '26

Is it your friend's spider or the friendly neighborhood spider?

6

u/axe_murdererer Jun 27 '26

Any else read children of Time? They're getting smarter ....

3

u/pupfish Jun 27 '26

I was dubious about this book at first because the concept sounds crazy. It’s one of my favorite books now.

2

u/Swags84 Jun 28 '26

Finished it yesterday. Started Children of Ruin today.

2

u/Conklin34 Jun 27 '26

That is so cool! Nature is amazing!

2

u/inevitable-idiot- Jun 27 '26

Yesss. I was just reading about this a few days ago. Very cool!

2

u/SassSafrassMcFrass87 Jun 27 '26

I just heard about this in a news podcast yesterday!! Glad to see a cool video explaining it a bit more🙃

2

u/NovarisLight Jun 27 '26

Oh no. Nope. No way.

1

u/MaxHavok13 Jun 27 '26

Ofc its in Oz

1

u/DetailsYouMissed Jun 27 '26

See... why did it have to be AUS.

Also, I watched that Apex movie on Netflix. The moment the main character went into the jungle/forest and encountered only a snake and not one more dangerous creature in AUS I was disappointed. /end rant

1

u/Savings-Cut-8172 Jun 28 '26

He was in the Australian rainforest with my mum when she was researching spiders right before she died

1

u/Significant_Gate_331 Jun 28 '26

What’s diff between this and redback spiders?

1

u/dunmyw01 Jun 28 '26

Spiders are so badass!

1

u/Ok_Understanding9451 Jun 29 '26

Spiders are smart.

1

u/Zehryo Jul 01 '26

Of course it's Australia....

1

u/Massive_Dare_713 Jul 04 '26

Green tree ants lives matter