What insect made this, and why?

In My Humble Opinion
21

None of this tells me what bug did it.

22

I wonder if they took one as a sample and cut the cone part open? It might provide some clues.

23

My vote is for a spider… with a mental issue. Possibly from a fungus or a parasite. It follows the basic structure of a web, but the change from two to three dimensions is there. The spider is doing what it naturally thinks it should do, but in the wrong dimensions.

24

Hey, Colibri, you’re a lot more likely to hear about an answer to this (if one is found) than any of us. Bump this thread when you do, will you?

25

If its on the underside of a tarp, its pointing down to what is beneath it. Say, if they set up very powerful microphones near it, I wonder what they’d hear?

26

I’d love to get back to southeastern Peru. I’ve never been to Tambopata, but a couple years ago I was in Manu National Park, and in the late 1990s I worked on a biodiversity inventory on the Camisea River on the lower Urubamba.

Sure.

27

This makes a lot of sense to me. I am going to assume it’s this until I hear otherwise.

28

That’s very interesting.

29

Nah. The nanobots are building a wind farm to power themselves, but those pesky humans keep interrupting them before they can install the blades.

30

Maybe the spiders have made an evolutionary jump? Is this the first spider that can think (and weave) in 3 dimensions? Maybe there are really badass flies that just arent fooled anymore by simple 2-D designs.

Quote appropriate this happened in the Amazon (or is it Timbuktu?) where spiders have been evolving unspoilt by human hands for jillions of years.

31

I’m with Morgyn. Why haven’t they cut one open? They’ve found three, right? Pick one to examine.

32

WIN.

My total WAG: the cone-thing is an egg-sack, the tower is for the spiderlings to climb so they can balloon away safely over the fence, and the fence is to protect the egg sack from predation / insect miscreants until the eggs hatch.

ETA: I love that the scientists took the time and effort to take some pretty artsy photos of these things.

33

Does the sun align with it at the Summer Solstice?

34

I was sure I’d heard of this before - that some insect makes a fence around its cocoon to protect the pupa from ants (or it might have been a spider protecting its egg sac for the same reason). I don’t believe I’d seen pictures, just a written description, but years ago.

35

I’m wondering if this is the remnant of a larger structure? Like, the “fence” is the base of a basket, and the “tower” was the attachment stalk for something like a pod inside the basket. The main structure is gone, and only the remnants remain:



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36

I’m not entirely unconvinced that the whole thing is a hoax.

37

I think this is what you are referring to. This get’s my vote as well.

http://www.damninteresting.com/mind-controlling-wasps-and-zombie-spiders/

38

LOL, I came in to say that I too think it looks like a transmitter-thingie; but I think it’s aimed at us… they’re getting ready to tell us, "Leave us the #%&%!!! alone!*

Either that, or it’s a transmission tower for the H.A.A.R.P. — you know, the Hive And Anthill Recreational Programming network.

Bug Cable.

39

Sauron is rebuilding Barad Dur.

Tolkien had the scale wrong all along.

40

Closer to Isengard than Barad-Dur