But before I tell you what makes it so special, I’ll let you try and guess. What makes this one species of spider different from all other species of spiders?
I’ll give you a few hints:
Give up?
It’s vegetarian!
There was a Staff Report once where Doug the Bug guy mentioned how “spiders are stricly predatory - they only kill what they can eat.” (I think those are the words he used.) He is now proven wrong! If I could find the article I’d go challenge him in Comments on Staff Reports, but the column seems to have disappeared into the aethernet.
I don’t care how unique it is - it’s a spider, smash it with a rock!!!
I saw that online.
i just about goggled!
A plant-eating spider!
I also found this fascinating. I first happened upon it in this BBC article:
It contains a video of the spider, and shows how it leaps and dodges the ants protecting the plant, in the distinct jumping spider style.
Jeez…the next thing you know, someone will be posting about a vegetarian cat. :rolleyes:
Though they do mention the spider DOES occasionally eat Ant Larvae every so often.
So it’s not fully a vegetarian, but it def. does skew that way.
Lousy non-commital formo-ovo vegetarians. Can’t stand 'em.
Even deer will eat meat if they can ( stranded small fish, raw chunks cut and left out by people ) and they still count as plant eaters.
I can’t find it on the site, but I found it elsewhere:
That way isn’t very sporting.
You gotta break a few larvae to make a salad…or sumptin like that.
Smash it!! Smash it!! For the love of Og, won’t someone think of the children!
Then let the children smash it…
Cool. The Nat Geo article says it eats plant “buds,” but it seems that what it is actually eating are Beltian bodies, nutritious packets of food the acacia produces to maintain the protective ants. So the spider steals the ants’ lunch, then eats their babies.
Does it wear “Hammer Pants”?
