Some species have an incredible ability to hack others to get what they want. Now scientists have discovered a fascinating new example – some spiders have been shown to attract fireflies by manipulating their glow More insects into their webs.
There's nothing healthier than the glorious glow of fireflies illuminating the warm twilight of late summer. Okay, don't tell the kids, but these bugs actually want to get lucky. Males fly around flashing their two flashlights in multiple flashing patterns, trying to attract the attention of females who stay in one place and flash a single flashlight in a single flashing pattern. When the females signal their interest, the males swoop in.
Interestingly, certain spiders seem to have figured out how to take advantage of this. Male fireflies caught in the webs of orb-weaving spiders have been found to attract all the males to the garden by making their flashing patterns resemble those emitted by females.
The study began when first author Xinhua Fu noticed that fireflies caught in spider webs appeared to be almost exclusively male. Curious about why, the researchers monitored 161 webs and compared the flashing patterns of free male and female fireflies and those with webs, and whether a spider was present.
Xinhua Fu
It turns out that it wasn't just the fireflies going crazy and flashing a distress signal. The researchers noticed that when the spider wasn't in the house, the captured fireflies weren't able to attract more males. The spider appeared to be actively monitoring the signals—engaging in a specialized coiling and biting cycle that other insects don't do, and even the fireflies whose flashlights the researchers had dimmed.
“By detecting the bioluminescent signals of trapped male fireflies, the spider engages a specialized prey-handling procedure that involves repeated wrapping bite attacks,” said Daiqin Li, co-author of the study.
The team says it's not yet clear whether something in the spider's venom or just the act of biting is triggering the change in firefly signaling. Further research could help answer that question, and there may also be other examples of animals cleverly “hacking” their prey to catch more or help their own life cycles.
The most famous story might be the “zombie ant fungus”, which drives its infected prey against its will to a nice, high place, allowing the fungus to grow and release spores down to infect more ants. You too could have a similar parasite – Toxoplasma gondiiIt's found in soil and cat feces. But don't worry, it's just trying to find its way back to its favorite home in cat intestines, and it can make you sexier and more enterprising in achieving that goal.
New research published in the journal Current Biology.
Source: Cell Press via Scimex