Jumping Spiders May Boast a Cognitive Ability We Wish They Didn’t Have
Itsy Bitsy Jumping Spider
As if the fact that some spiders are capable of jumping was not already frightening enough.It turns out that jumping spiders might be able to distinguish between animate and inanimate objects, a 2021 Harvard Universiry study suggests.This means that these spiders can basically tell when something is moving – an ability that was believed to be obtained by vertebrates only.According to the research, spiders behaved differently when presented with objects that moved or remained in one position, and the ways they reacted indicated an ability to discern between them.”These results clearly demonstrate the ability of jumping spiders to discriminate between biological motion cues,” the researchers wrote. “The presence of a biological motion-based detection system in jumping spiders deepens questions regarding the evolutionary origins of this visual processing strategy and opens the possibility that such mechanisms might be widespread across the animal kingdom.”Moreover, the researchers found that spiders would swivel their bodies around to examine the objects they did not immediately recognize, using the secondary eyes on the side of their heads.”The secondary eyes are looking at this point-light display of biological motion and it can already understand it, whereas the other random motion is weird and they don’t understand what’s there,” the scientists noted.The model can be used to learn more about the similar ability in other invertebrates such as snails or insects, according to the scientific team.
