What is the basis of the complex behavior of spiders. What are the features of the structure and behavior of the spider-cross. Features of the spider-cross. Practical application of the orb weaver's web
The risk of writing an article about spiders and their terrifying relatives is that while studying information about these creatures, deep down you will constantly want to throw a slipper at the monitor, and not read, let alone watch photos and videos. After all, all these terrible and disgusting arachnids want to do is eat your face. Yes, yes, it is your face, dear reader. But if you can shake off the feeling of fear and disgust, you will know that these small insects actually have remarkable intelligence and sociability. But among them, of course, there are several that are the definition of the word "horror", so you can not put your slipper far away.
10. Males eating females
Many of us have heard that female spiders sometimes eat males. This makes more sense - the male loses any chance of breeding in the future, but the female, who received a good meal, is more likely to carry eggs before the young are born. The spider species Micaria sociabilis turns this concept on its head, as 20 percent of matings end with the male eating the female. However, this species of spider is not the only one showing this behavior, but there is no obvious explanation for it.
Researchers in the Czech Republic hoped to find an answer by noting which females end up being eaten. Micaria sociabilis produce two generations of young each year, one in spring and one in summer. When males were with females from both groups, they were more likely to eat older females and release their younger mates. Using older females for food to increase your chances of mating with younger females is a strategy that seems to work, as younger females are more likely to raise offspring.
9. Matriphagy
Given the black widow's bad reputation, any spider with the word "black" in its name immediately makes us wary. The black weaver of the species Amaurobius ferox is no exception - it has a very unflattering way of being born. When little spiders hatch from the eggs of this species, the mother encourages them to eat her alive. When nothing is left of her, they climb onto her web and hunt in groups of 20 individuals, killing prey 20 times their size. Young spiders also ward off predators by contracting their bodies at the same time, giving the impression of a pulsating web.
Another spider that devours its mother is the Stegodyphus lineatus spider. Newborn spiders of this species live for some time, feeding on the liquid that their mother regurgitates for them. They end up liquefying her organs and drinking them - and they do it with her permission.
8. Family life
Photo: Acrocynus
Common names for arachnids are often depressingly incorrect. Phrynes, or as they are also known as bugle-legged spiders, are not spiders. They belong to a completely different order of arachnids. These eight-legged creatures resemble some kind of spider-scorpion hybrid, but with whips. If this image does not make you want to hug these creatures, let me introduce you to the inhabitant of the state of Florida - the species Phrynus marginemaculatus, as well as the inhabitant of Tanzania - Damon diadema.
Researchers at Cornell University have found that these types of phrynes like to live together in family groups. The mother and her grown cubs got together again after they were separated by scientists. The groups act aggressively towards strangers and spend their time constantly petting and grooming each other. Scientists think cohabitation may well help these arachnids ward off predators and allow mothers to protect their broods.
7. Fatherly care
And how do spider fathers help their children? Of course, there are those who offer themselves as a dinner to the mother of their future children. But this is a choice for lazy people. Fathers of tropical harvestmen are actively involved in raising offspring: they take on the role of nest guards as soon as the female lays eggs. Without fathers to protect them, the eggs would simply not hatch. The fathers drive the ants away, repair the nest, and clean up the mold—sometimes within months.
This method is suitable for males for several reasons. First, in this way, they impress the females and win their favor. The male can look after the clutches of 15 females at the same time. The scientists also found that males who care for their offspring have a much higher chance of survival than careless dads. Perhaps this is because their stationary position keeps them from encountering animals that love to prey on spiders, in addition, females take care to leave slime around their nests and, accordingly, the male, which helps drive predators away from the nest.
6. Distribution of tasks depending on the characteristics of the character
Speaking of the genus of spiders known as Stegodyphus, one cannot ignore a special kind of arachnid known as Stegodyphus sarasinorum. Although they also liquefy their mother's innards and drink them, they also have an interesting characteristic. They live in colonies, in which tasks are distributed in accordance with the nature of this or that individual. Scientists tested the aggression and courage of spiders by touching them with sticks or with the help of wind blows. They marked the spiders with multicolored markings to track individual spiders. The scientists then allowed the spiders to organize their colony.
After that, the team decided to run a test to determine which of the spiders would come out to examine which floundering insects were stuck in their webs. Spiders respond to the vibrations that pass through the web when insects twitch in it. Shaking the web with your hand would create exorbitant vibrations, so scientists used an electrical device that was specifically tuned to create certain vibrations. The little pink device is called Minivibe Bubbles. What these devices were originally intended for - guess for yourself.
The scientists found that those that ran after prey were those that had previously shown a more aggressive nature. This is quite understandable, and such a division of duties can bring to the colony the same benefit that the division of labor brings to our society.
5. Courtship in the most appropriate way
Male wolf spiders put a lot of effort into making a good first impression on ladies. The key to success with them, as with humans, is effective communication. Several independent studies have shown how male wolf spiders alter the way they signal to potential mates for maximum effect.
Researchers at the University of Cincinnati placed male wolf spiders on rocks, on the ground, on wood, and on leaves, and found that their signaling vibrations were most effective when they were standing on leaves. During a second set of tests, they gave the spiders a choice and found that wolf spiders spent more time signaling on leaves than on other materials. In addition, when males were on less than ideal surfaces, they relied less on vibrations and paid more attention to visual effects such as raising their legs.
However, changing the method of communication is not the only trick that wolf spiders have hidden up their eight sleeves. Scientists from Ohio State University noticed that male wolf spiders in the wild tried to imitate their competitors in order to be more successful with the ladies. To test this theory, the scientists captured several wild male wolf spiders and showed them a video of another male wolf spider doing a mating dance. Caught males immediately copied it. This ability to copy and act on what is seen is a complex behavior that is quite rare among small invertebrates.
4. Interspecific societies
Social spiders, that is, those that live in colonies, are quite rare. However, the scientists found a colony of two spider species living together. Both spiders belonged to the genus Chikunia, which makes them as close relatives as wolves are related to coyotes or modern humans to Homo erectus. Lena Grinsted, a Danish researcher, discovered the unusual settlement when she was conducting experiments to see if females would reliably protect the broods of other females of their own species.
It soon became clear that there were two kinds of spiders in the colony she was studying. The discovery was made after conducting genetic analysis and studying the difference in the genitalia of different species. The benefits of cohabitation have not been elucidated, as neither species has something that the other species needs. They do not hunt together and cannot interbreed. The only possible advantage is the mutual care of the offspring, since the females of both species are happy to look after the broods, regardless of their species.
3. Selective aggression
Most of the arachnids on this list that live in colonies usually hunt in groups. The orb-web spider living in a colony does not fit this pattern of behavior. These spiders live in colonies but hunt alone. During the daytime, hundreds of spiders relax in a central web suspended between trees and bushes with a huge amount of threads. At night, when hunting time comes, spiders build their own webs on long threads in order to catch insects.
When one spider has chosen a place and built his web, he does not intend to tolerate the presence of other spiders trying to take advantage of the fruit of his efforts. If another member of the colony approaches, the web builder jumps on it to scare away the intruder. Usually such border violators understand what's going on and go to another site to build their web - but everything changes if all the good places are already taken.
If there is no space around to weave their own webs, webless orbweb spiders will ignore the web builder's irritable jumps and remain on its web. The web builder will not attack, and an uninvited guest can usually catch his own dinner, taking advantage of the efforts of his fellow. However, they never fight because it's not worth it - threatening jumps are more of a friendly "have you looked elsewhere" question?
2. Gifts and tricks 
When a male Pisaurid spider spots a female he would like to mate with, he tries to impress her with a gift. Usually the gift is a dead insect, which is proof that he knows how to get food (and, accordingly, can pass on good genes). Males even wrap their gifts, although they lose a lot by not learning how to make a bow out of their silky web. On average, non-gifting males mate 90 percent less than their generous counterparts.
Sometimes it is very difficult to get a tasty fly, or it can be so tasty that the male himself wants to eat it before he has a chance to give it to his beloved. In this case, it will simply wrap an empty insect corpse, or any piece of trash of a similar size that is lying around. This works quite often, and males who give fake gifts mate many more times than those who do not give them anything. However, females quickly figure out the deception and give unscrupulous boyfriends less time to leave their sperm in them than those males who brought edible gifts.
1The blood-drinking spider that loves dirty socks 
Evarcha culicivora, also known as the "vampire spider", is a rather unusual creature. It gets its name from the fact that it glistens in the sun and... oh no, apparently it gets its name from the fact that it likes to drink human blood. Although it certainly sounds terrible, one of the most interesting features of the spider is that it does not receive its dinner directly - it eats mosquitoes that have just drunk human blood. The vampire spider is the only animal known to choose its prey based on what it has just eaten.
When it smells blood, the spider goes berserk, killing up to 20 mosquitoes. This makes the vampire spider potentially useful, as the mosquito species it kills, Anopheles gambiae, is a malaria vector. By controlling the numbers of these mosquitoes, the spider saves lives.
Due to the fact that his dinner is usually hung around people, so does the spider. He is attracted to the smell of human settlements, including the smell of dirty socks. Scientists did an experiment in which they put a vampire spider in a box. In one case there was a clean sock in the box, in the second it was dirty. The spiders lingered longer at the dirty socks. Scientists hope that this knowledge will help them attract populations of this beneficial spider to areas where it is necessary to reduce the population of harmful mosquitoes.
Sound
Many tarantulas of both the New and Old Worlds are able to make sounds like a squeak. Some of them can produce quite a loud hiss or hum. Usually the spider makes these sounds when it feels some kind of threat, and often this is accompanied by raising the forelimbs and tilting the body back to show the underside of the prosoma. The effect is enhanced by the presence of bright or contrasting markings on the undersurfaces of the pedipalps and the first pair of walking legs, or patches of red and orange bristles around the oral region, giving the appearance of an open, snarling pharynx. Tame, calm tarantulas that have lived in captivity for a long time usually do not creak, while recently caught or warlike individuals usually make such sounds.
It is very difficult to describe the emotional reaction of a person caused by a hissing tarantula. One of the authors of the book (SAS) encountered for the first time the creaking of a tarantula performed by a male Teraphosa blondie, exceeding 22 cm in leg span. When approaching him, this spider raised chelicerae, pedipalps, front legs and emitted such a loud hiss that it could be heard even on the other side of the room, several days passed before the owner mustered enough courage to approach the spider again.
Sometimes tarantulas make sounds during rapid movements, cleaning, or when they are defeated by the enemy (for intimidation). This has not yet been reported in the scientific literature, but it is possible that this is one of the techniques for scaring off predators. When a male tarantula encounters a female, he must convince her that he will not cause her any harm, but, on the contrary, is an assistant in procreation. One of the things he may start doing is bending his legs or twitching them 2-4 times in one series of movements with short pauses in between. During each series of such twitches, the authors noted a specific scratching or rasping sound produced in rhythm with the movements of the legs. That the sound is produced by the tarantula itself, and not caused by contact with the substrate, became apparent for two reasons. First, the same sound was present on a wide variety of surfaces, including soft tissue. Secondly, in one of the experiments, the male Brachypelma albopilosum performed this maneuver while sitting on a human arm. A friend of the authors held a female of the same species, then took the male out of the terrarium. The sound was barely audible, but the tactile vibration was amazing.
This was not a creak in the traditional sense, because this species of tarantula does not have the traditional creaking organs on its chelicerae, pedipalps, and first walking legs, as do other species capable of making sounds (for example, Brachypelma smithi, B. albopilosum, and B. Emilia). Spiders of 'squeaky' varieties such as Phrixotrichus cala, P. spatulata, and Theraphosa blondi apparently do not move their squeaky organs when producing this sound.
The authors did not find any explanation of this phenomenon in the literature, and they themselves could not determine the source of such a sound. However, for the future, we suggest using the term "sexual creaking" to refer to this specific activity.
How and where is this sound produced? Is it a manifestation of nervousness on the part of the male? Or does he report that the male is a potential assistant in the matter of procreation? Or maybe these sounds carry a secret password, necessary in order not to be eaten by a female?
Many years ago, authors were amazed by the behavior of Aphonopelma seemanni individuals, which create energetic, terrifying sounds emanating from their terrariums in response to egg cartons (used in packing crickets) hitting the aquarium walls when unpacking insects. These impacts, when reflected, produced low frequency pulsating sounds. The tarantulas apparently responded to this sound.
Since that time, the authors have repeatedly heard and seen female tarantulas making a wide range of calls of several varieties with similar terrifying sounds, possibly calling for males from neighboring terrariums to fight back. With the clear progress in the art of keeping tarantulas in captivity and from other keepers, information also began to come in about the exchange of signals between individuals ready to breed.
It turns out that these seemingly silent and primitive animals can communicate with each other! Do they do it in nature? Probably, but no one who watched the tarantulas in the wild reported this.
How many different sounds can tarantulas make? Do these sounds differ from spiders of a different sex, variety, age, and do the sounds depend on these factors? What other factors influence them? Obviously, tarantulas can hear, but with what organs? Do they use these sounds when signaling danger to each other? Do they signal the approach of competitors? While this may seem a bit implausible, it is a fact that other spiders use sounds in courtship rituals and competition. Why not tarantulas?
Here is a chance for the hobbyist to contribute to the general knowledge of tarantulas. Using careful observation and a well-placed VCR, one can try to catalog these sounds, determine how they were produced, and deduce their purpose.
Other behaviors
These amazing creatures show many other unexpected behavioral patterns if given the chance. Scholars and enthusiasts are just beginning to appreciate the size and complexity of their repertoire. It is a pity that we cannot provide a complete list of them in this book. An enthusiast who has gained little experience in keeping one or two varieties of tarantulas begins to experiment further, studying their behavior and trying to learn as much as possible in order to tell others. The most interesting are the behavioral patterns shown by animals in a natural setting. An inquisitive keeper, if possible, could seriously engage in the placement of several tarantulas over a large area, creating a semblance of an artificial colony.
For a project that can last for several years, you will need a properly heated area, for example, 2x2 m with a layer of soil of 1 m. The soil should be as close as possible to that on which this species of tarantula lives. This area can be provided with a few stones, branches and other barriers to create a natural setting and enliven the site.
Several tarantulas of the same species will be able to establish their holes in different parts of the site. It is better to use immature individuals for these purposes. Observation of tarantulas for several years in such conditions will provide an opportunity to take unique photographs and videos demonstrating the most diverse elements of tarantula behavior. Since tarantulas are most active during the darkest hours of the evening and night, equipment such as red lights or infrared cameras for filming can also be used simply for nighttime viewing of animals. We can only roughly guess what wonders the tarantulas would show us under such conditions. It is also very attractive that such an experiment will not cost you too much. For example, red lamps can always be purchased at photo stores. For shooting, you can use a 35mm camera with a single lens, suitable for IR-sensitive film (with the appropriate filter). Neither the filters nor the film itself are fabulously expensive. This experiment is desirable to be carried out for several years, and it will require constant study and close attention in order to detail all observations and draw the right conclusions. Plan to spend more time watching spiders during the morning hours. Of course, the experimenter will simply be required to publish a detailed description of the construction and arrangement of the site, plus periodic reports on the results achieved in an amateur newsletter or in a professional magazine.
The complex behavior of spiders - their "industry", that is, the construction of trapping nets, flight devices, underground or underwater dwellings, as well as the "care for offspring" developed in many species - may seem like a manifestation of intelligent activity of the same order as conscious human activity.
However, a study of the way of life of spiders clearly shows that the basis of their psychological activity is more or less complex instincts, that is, certain norms of behavior inherent in each individual species, which are not acquired by personal experience, but constitute a specific feature of a given animal.
Like all other species characteristics - a certain form of the body, the location of the eyes, the pattern on the surface of the abdomen, etc. - the instincts are inherited from generation to generation and immediately, already in finished form, appear at the appropriate age or at the appropriate stage of development.
So, for example, newborn cubs of the cross, leaving the egg cocoon only the next spring, that is, a few months after the death of their parents, stay in this cocoon all together, but in case of danger they scatter in different directions - “crumble like beads”.
Their behavior turns out to be very expedient: if, as the proverb says, it is impossible to immediately chase two hares, then it is even more difficult to chase a hundred spiderlings scattering in all directions at a time. But now the danger has passed, and the tiny spiderlings again gather under the shelter of a silky cocoon arranged by their mother, which protects them well from rain and dew.
The cubs of wandering spiders - tarantulas and smaller forms of eight-legged "wolves" behave quite differently. In these species, females "caringly" carry their egg cocoon with them, and when the eggs hatch, they begin to crawl over the mother's body or roam leisurely around her.
However, at the slightest alarm, spiderlings instantly gather in a tight heap on the mother's torso, which can really protect them from attacks.
But the days go by, and the close "friendship" between the brothers and sisters disappears: the grown-up predators scatter apart and, when they meet, treat each other as if they were a possible prey. This new instinct also turns out to be very useful, since it can be difficult for several predators to feed in one place and each of them occupies a separate hunting area for itself.
Young cobweb spiders begin to weave snares, and at the same time it turns out that they, who have never seen how their parents did, immediately “know how” to build them, and moreover, in exactly the way that is characteristic of this type of spider: crosses - in the form vertically stretched network, spiders of the genus Linifia - in the form of a horizontal arch. No one teaches a silver spider to build his underwater bell and carry air into it and so on.
We should not be surprised that these hereditary norms of behavior turn out to be well suited to the animal's life situation: as a result of the constant action of selection, animals that do not satisfy the "requirements" of the environment in terms of their bodily characteristics or according to their instincts are inevitably subject to destruction.
Even such seemingly bizarre postures and “dances” that precede mating in spiders are explained by the fact that spiders are devoid of smell and can only see clearly at close range: therefore, visual signals remain almost the only way for them to to be seen by individuals of the opposite sex and not be mistaken for approaching prey.
Those spiders in which the hereditary instinct of “marriage games” or “dances” would not have manifested at the appropriate moment would either remain unfertilized or would be eaten, like an insect carelessly approaching, that is, in both cases they would be left without offspring.
Therefore, despite the outward similarity of the behavior of spiders with manifestations of intelligent activity, we have no right to "humanize" their actions or attach any moral assessment to them. It should not seem to us an incomprehensible contradiction of the behavior of the female tarantula, which after mating often “cannibalistically” eats the male who did not have time to escape, and then turns out to be an extremely “tender” mother, “caringly” dragging her egg cocoon with her everywhere, and after hatching, the spiders are just as “ carefully” guarding her numerous offspring.
The fact is that in spiders, the life of a male after he has performed his sexual function is no longer of value for the preservation of the species, and in females, after mating, their usual instinct towards crawling prey comes into force. As for maternal “concerns for offspring”, if the female did not manifest the corresponding instinct at the appropriate time in her life, her small, weak and defenseless offspring would be doomed to death, and, consequently, any deviation from this useful (in the data conditions!) for species life, the norms of behavior are invariably swept away by the action of natural selection.
CLASS ARCHINA
Habitat, structure and lifestyle.
Arachnids include spiders, ticks, scorpions and other arthropods, more than 35 thousand species in total. Arachnids have adapted to life in terrestrial habitats. Only some of them, for example, the silver spider, passed into the water for the second time.
The body of arachnids consists of a cephalothorax and usually a non-segmented abdomen or fused. There are 6 pairs of limbs on the cephalothorax, of which 4 pairs are used for locomotion. Arachnids do not have antennae or compound eyes. They breathe with the help of lung bags, trachea, skin. The largest number of arachnid species are spiders and mites.
Spiders inhabited a wide variety of habitats. In sheds, on fences, branches of trees and shrubs, openwork wheel-shaped networks of a spider-cross are common, and in their center or not far from them are the spiders themselves. These are females. On the dorsal side of their abdomen, a pattern resembling a cross is noticeable. Males are smaller than females and do not make trapping nets. In residential premises, sheds and other buildings, a house spider is common. He builds a trapping net in the form of a hammock. The silver spider makes a cobweb nest in the water in the form of a bell, and around it it pulls trapping cobweb threads.
At the end of the abdomen are arachnoid warts with ducts of the arachnoid glands. The substance released in the air turns into spider webs. When building a trapping web, the spider, using the comb-like claws of its hind legs, connects them into threads of different thicknesses.
Spiders are predators. They feed on insects and other small arthropods. The spider grabs the caught victim with its tentacles and sharp upper jaws, injects a poisonous liquid into the wounds, acting as digestive juice. After a while, he sucks out the contents of the prey with the help of a sucking stomach.
The complex behavior of spiders associated with the construction of trapping webs, feeding or reproduction is based on a multitude of successive reflexes. Hunger causes a reflex of searching for a place to build a trapping net, the found place serves as a signal for highlighting the web, fixing it, etc. Behavior that includes a chain of successive innate reflexes is called instinct.
Scorpions are predators. They have a long segmented abdomen, on the last segment of which there is a stinger with ducts of poisonous glands. Scorpions catch and hold their prey with tentacles, on which claws are developed. These arachnids live in hot regions (in Central Asia, in the Caucasus, in the Crimea).
The meaning of arachnids. Spiders and many other arachnids exterminate flies and mosquitoes, which are of great benefit to humans. Many birds, lizards and other animals feed on them. There are many spiders that harm humans. The bites of a karakurt living in Central Asia, the Caucasus, and the Crimea cause the death of horses and camels. For a person, scorpion venom is dangerous, causing redness and swelling of the bitten place, nausea and convulsions.
Soil mites, processing plant residues, improve the structure of the soil. But grain, flour and cheese mites destroy and spoil food supplies. Herbivorous mites infect cultivated plants. Scabies mites in the upper layer of human skin (usually between the fingers) and animals gnaw through passages, causing severe itching.
The taiga tick infects humans with the causative agent of encephalitis. Penetrating into the brain, the pathogen affects it. Taiga ticks get encephalitis pathogens by feeding on the blood of wild animals. The causes of the disease with taiga encephalitis were clarified in the late 30s by a group of scientists headed by academician E.N. Pavlovsky. All people working in the taiga are given anti-encephalitis vaccinations.
Squad: Araneae = Spiders
All of the above shows how highly developed the instincts of spiders are. The latter, as is well known, are unconditioned reflexes, that is, complex innate reactions of the animal to changes in the external and internal environment. A tiny spider, recently hatched from an egg, immediately builds a trapping net in all the details characteristic of this species, and makes it no worse than an adult, only in miniature. However, the instinctive activity of spiders, with all its constancy, cannot be considered absolutely unchanged. On the one hand, spiders develop new reactions in the form of conditioned reflexes to certain external influences, for example, when reinforcing the food given to the spider with a certain color. On the other hand, the chains of instincts themselves, the order of individual acts of behavior, can vary within certain limits. For example, if a spider is removed from the net before the completion of its construction and another spider of the same species and age is planted on it, then the latter continues to work from the stage at which it was interrupted, i.e., the entire initial stage in the chain of instinctive acts, as it were disappears. When individual pairs of limbs are removed from the spider, the remaining pairs perform the functions of the removed ones, the coordination of movements is restructured, and the network design is preserved. These and similar experiments are interpreted by some foreign zoopsychologists as a refutation of the unconditioned reflex nature of the behavior of spiders, up to attributing intelligent activity to spiders. In fact, there is a certain plasticity of instincts here, developed in spiders as an adaptation to certain situations that are not uncommon in their life. For example, a spider often has to repair and add to its web, which makes the spider's behavior on someone else's incomplete web understandable. Without the plasticity of instincts, the evolution of arachnoid activity is unthinkable, since in this case there would be no material for natural selection.
The protective devices of spiders are different and often very perfect. In addition to the poisonous apparatus, fast running, hidden lifestyle, many spiders have protective (cryptic) coloration and mimicry, as well as reflex defensive reactions. The latter in a number of net forms are expressed in the fact that, when disturbed, the spider falls to the ground on a cobweb that connects it with nets, or, remaining on the net, produces such rapid oscillatory movements that the contours of the body become indistinguishable. Many wandering forms are characterized by a threat posture - the cephalothorax and protruding legs rise towards the enemy.
Protective coloration is characteristic of many spiders. Forms living on foliage and grass are often colored green, and those living among plants in conditions of alternating light and shade are spotty; spiders living on tree trunks are often indistinguishable in color and pattern from bark, etc. The color of some spiders varies depending on the color of the background. Examples of this kind are well known in the Thomisidae side-walker spiders, which live on flowers and change color depending on the color of the corolla: from white to yellow or greenish and back, which usually occurs within a few days. Experiments with blinded spiders have shown that vision does not play a role in color change.
Often spiders are similar to the surrounding objects and in shape. Some highly elongated spiders, sitting motionless on their web with their legs extended along the body, are very similar to a twig that has fallen into the net. Side walkers of the genus Phrynarachne are remarkable. They weave a cobweb cover on the surface of the leaves, in the middle of which they themselves are placed, creating the complete impression of bird excrement. It is believed that cryptism in this case matters not so much protection as attracting prey, since the spider even emits the smell of bird excrement, which attracts some flies. One species, P. dicipiens, lies on its back, holding on to the cobweb cover with its front legs, while the rest are pressed to the chest in a position very convenient for grasping an approaching fly.
There are known cases of mimicry, i.e. external resemblance to other, well-protected animals. Some spiders look like inedible ladybugs or stinging hymenoptera - Germans (family Mutillidae). Of particular interest is the very perfect imitation of ants in a number of myrmecophilic species of the families Thomisidae, Salticidae, and others. The similarity is manifested not only in the shape and color, but also in the movements of the spider. The opinion that the resemblance to ants helps spiders to sneak up on ants and devour them is not justified. Ants recognize each other mainly by smell and touch, and external resemblance can hardly deceive them. In addition, among the spiders, real ant-eaters, there are many that are not at all like them. More likely, the protective value of the resemblance to an ant, especially against the attack of wasps-pompils.