A newly described spider in North Queensland rainforest hunts exactly one prey species — the green tree ant, an insect so aggressive most predators avoid it — by building a silk trap that flings the ant into its web. Macquarie University researchers, writing in Current Biology, found the spider builds a cone of 15 to 60 bundled silk lines near the ground, coats it with a pheromone that lures worker ants into biting it, then retreats.
The bite detaches the cone and catapults the ant more than 30 centimeters into the web above, accelerating faster than 1,300 meters per second squared — power beating any other silk-based biological catapult measured so far. The spider waits for its catch to tangle fully before wrapping it in silk and hauling it away from the ant's nest-mates. "It's very unusual for a spider to feed on ants because they're notoriously dangerous, and even more bizarre to find a spider that eats only one particular ant species," said lead researcher Ajay Narendra.
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