I'm not a huge fan of spiders, but I found this to be pretty cool (seeing that you have probably learned about this general topic in some biology course or another like I have). We all know (or you will now) that female spiders eat their mates after copulation. It has just been announced that there is a "hippie" spider that is vegetarian and doesn't even live on a web. This means she doesn't eat her mate!
The species is called Bagheera kiplingi, and it is from South America. It is one out of 40,000 species that acts the way it does. Its diet consists of wild acacia plants! The only obstacle with this, is that they first have to get past ants guarding the food on these plants. Eating plants puzzles scientists because spiders are not physiologically built to be vegetarian, but B. kiplingi eats veggies whole.
Instead of living on a web, this spider hangs out on leaf buds mostly, so there is no need to catch any prey on a web. They don't seem to be having any troubles. This is nice for the spiders because all of it's energy isn't wasted on making webs for the purpose of prey catching.The only time it will use its web making is to make little nests for its young.
This interesting way of living and I wonder what type of communication goes on between this species of spiders. They first need to find a way to get the food from the ants. Do they communicate in this task? The female does not eat her mate, so does this mean that they stay together? Does the male still bring the female a nuptial gift? This communication could be much different than the 40,000 other spiders that exist and will be interesting for researchers to figure it out.
Update: I am assuming that they avoid all "meaty" snacks because the acacia plants are so abundant in that area. From reading the articles, I understand that they only eat that type of plant (the bugs from it). No other research has been done to find out physiologically how they have adapted such a way to be complete herbivores. Maybe this is helpful that she does not sacrifice her mate because he can be around to help with young. But then I wonder, this could be helpful, but all 40,000 other species can handle raising them on their own. More updates will come if I find anything else about this topic!
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/science/biology_evolution/article6869475.ece
Posted by Alyson Paige (week 3)I
Really interesting article Alyson...I wonder how these spiders digest plant matter. They must have some mechanism different from the spiders that we are used to thinking of. I hope they do more studies with these spiders, they are very curious!
ReplyDeletePS: The above comment was posted by Jess Bouchard.
ReplyDeleteIt sounds like there is still much to learn about this "hippie" spider which is a very interesting species indeed!
ReplyDeleteHow much research has been done on this spider? Has anyone dissected one to see if there is anything vastly different in the anatomy when compared to other spiders? Is there an evolutionary reason why being vegetarian (and letting your mate live) would be beneficial?
I hope more about this spider is published soon. Now I am really curious!
-Tricia Carlson
I have never heard of a vegetarian spider, or a spider that doesn't make webs, before. I'm curious about how this evolved. Were all the ancestors of this spider also vegetarian, or did this evolve recently? What benefits are there to having to compete with ants to get food from acacia plants versus spinning a web and catching prey?
ReplyDeletePosted by Sarah Benjamin
Did it mention if the spider killed the ants in order to eat the plant or did the spider just maneuver itself around the ants? I find it very interesting that the spider has to compete with the ants for the plant material. I would think that there would be some sort of battle between the two for food.
ReplyDeleteIt would definitely be interesting to dissect one of these to see if their digestive system is closely related to an herbivore's. Great article!
-Sara Ku
This is very interesting. I don't know a lot about spiders at all and wasn't aware of this fact. I wonder why just this one spider is a vegetarian. Are they digestive systems built a different way? I wonder some of the same things you do. If they female spider is a vegetarian does she only mate with a male who is also a vegetarian?
ReplyDeletePosted by Samantha Babcock
This was really interesting to read about. I was wondering, if these spiders are vegetarians what do they eat? Will they occasionally eat other bugs, or avoid them completely? Do they know how these spiders came to evolve such odd diets?
ReplyDeletePosted by Heather Gore
This is a really interesting post. And I say that with the utmost sincerity because I do not enjoy spiders either. I wonder why this adaptation has evolved? Do these spiders tend to live in an area with a very high density of web spinning/insect eating spiders? This way the vegetarian spider would be able to successfully cohabitate an area with many "normal" spiders. Also, what kind of predators does Bagheera kiplingi have? Are birds less attracted to vegetarian prey?
ReplyDeleteOverall, very quality post:)
-Jillian O'Keefe