Using an infrared light to see at night, a camera captured all their movements as they wisped around the enclosure constructing their webs. This species is nocturnal and was chosen because they're active throughout the year and small in size, reports Ars Technica.Įach night, the spiders were placed in a plexiglass box to build their webs. To investigate, Gordus and his team studied six hackled orb weaver spiders, a species belonging to a group that creates spiral wheel–shaped webs. "Well, this is even more amazing because a spider's brain is so tiny, and I was frustrated that we didn't know more about how this remarkable behavior occurs." "I thought, 'If you went to a zoo and saw a chimpanzee building this, you'd think that's one amazing and impressive chimpanzee,'" he says in a press release. Study coauthor Andrew Gordus, a behavioral biologist at Johns Hopkins University, was out birding with his son when they stumbled upon a beautiful spider web. The analysis revealed that spiders have their own "choreography," reports Jennifer Ouellette for Ars Technica.
These arachnid architects have both astounded and puzzled scientists for ages, but a new study published last month in the journal Current Biologyunravels the spiders' secrets.Ī team of scientists at Johns Hopkins University used night vision and artificial intelligence (A.I.) tools to track spiders' movements-down to the precise placement of their legs-as they wove their webs. Spider webs are one of nature's most impressive marvels even the tiniest of spiders-with equally tiny brains-can spin intricate, geometric webs.
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