Secret codes and hidden messages aren't just for computer security experts or kids passing notes in class—animals use them too. The telltale red hourglass of the black widow spider sends a warning signal that some animals ...
Plants & Animals
Feb 29, 2016
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Using web samples from black widow spiders fed with crickets, researchers at the University of Notre Dame have successfully used DNA samples to identify both the spider and the species of its prey. Such noninvasive sampling ...
Biotechnology
Jan 12, 2016
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Scientists extracted DNA from spider webs to identify the web's spider architect and the prey that crossed it, according to this proof-of-concept study published November 25, 2015 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Charles ...
Plants & Animals
Nov 25, 2015
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Tahiti is a popular tourist destination, but one unwanted visitor has decided to make its home there: the brown widow spider (Latrodectus geometricus). A paper published in the Journal of Medical Entomology has reported the ...
Ecology
Aug 25, 2015
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13
Male black widow spiders destroy large sections of the female's web during courtship and wrap it up in their own silk. New research published in Animal Behaviour shows that this home-wrecking behavior deters rival males, ...
Plants & Animals
Jul 13, 2015
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A fear of spiders, arachnophobia, is in our DNA. You don't learn to freeze at the site of these creatures; you're born with the fear. Even the sight of hypodermic needles and houseflies does not trigger a similar response. ...
Black widow spiders are notorious for their painful bites and lethal venom. The venom is potent enough to let these spiders and their close relatives prey upon small reptiles and mammals that other arachnids wouldn't ever ...
Plants & Animals
Jan 6, 2015
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180
New University of Toronto Scarborough research shows that male black widow spiders prefer their female mates to be well-fed virgins – a rare example of mate preference by male spiders.
Plants & Animals
Apr 23, 2014
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(Phys.org) —A team of Simon Fraser University biologists has found that male black widow spiders shake their abdomens to produce carefully pitched vibrations that let females know they have "come a-courting" and are not ...
Plants & Animals
Jan 16, 2014
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Creepy crawlies, in the form of a venomous spider infestation, has forced a school in Britain to close a week before Halloween.
Plants & Animals
Oct 23, 2013
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