Orb-weaving spiders outsource their hearing to their web
By Patience Asanga Image source: Binghamton.edu. Credit: Jonathan Cohen Determined not to let their size put them down, many small animals have devised means to carry on with their lives like every other large animal. We've heard of how ants carry heavy loads with the help of their neck joints that can withstand pressures up to 5000 times the ant’s weight. Today the spotlight is on spiders. A new study finds that these guys have refused to allow their body size to constrain their sense of hearing, as with other small animals that do not have enough room for an eardrum. The study says these little weavers found a way to outsource their hearing to their web, which is entirely different from how the auditory organs of small animals operate. Following several scientific experiments on bridge spiders (Larinioides sclopetarius), Jian et al. (2022) found that this spider uses its orb-web to capture sound. Jian and his team collected female bridge spiders from their n...