The spider uses captured fireflies to attract more prey.

During field missions, researcher Shenhua Fu of Huazhong Agricultural University in China noticed several males. hidden station The fireflies were entangled in the webs of the orb weaver Araneus ventricosus. Oddly enough, he rarely saw a female firefly in such a web.

Fu suspected that the spiders manipulated the signals emitted by the captured fireflies to attract more male prey. Fireflies use the bright lanterns on their abdomens to emit flashing signals that they use to communicate with their mates. Species hidden station Males flash their lanterns to attract females, while females use only one lantern to attract males.

To test his hypothesis, Fu, along with behavioral ecologists Daiqin Li and Shizhang Zhang of Hubei University, conducted extensive field observations of spider behavior and firefly signals. What they saw confirmed that the spider web frequently caught male fireflies, but they also showed that this happened mainly when the spider itself was also present in the web.

manipulation

The researchers also found that the signals emitted by the captured male fireflies resembled typical signals used by free-ranging females, which primarily attract other males to the web. The entangled males rarely did this when the spider was absent, which seems to indicate that the males have not modified their flashes to use, for example, as a distress signal.

The results seem to suggest that the spiders manipulated the firefly’s signal to catch more prey. Indeed, the researchers discovered that Ventricular spiders Celestial body mentioned hidden station The fireflies undergo different stings and coils so they can send signals using just a lantern. The researchers now want to investigate further whether the changes in the males’ interlocking signals are due to the sting itself or rather to the spider’s venom.

The research shows that animals can use indirect but dynamic actions to attract a particular class of prey. The researchers are convinced that there must be many more undescribed examples in nature where predators use mimicry to manipulate the behavior of their prey. They suspect that they use communication signals such as sound and pheromones.