Spiders Caught Hunting in Giant Synchronized Swarms, And Now We Know How

Pack hunting spiders exist in places other than your nightmares. While most spiders enjoy solitary lives, 20 of the roughly 50,000 known spider species live in colonies. One species, Anelosimus eximius, lives in extremely large colonies of up to 1,000 individual spiders that work together to build webs spanning several meters.   When prey falls into their … Read more

Spiders that hunt in groups synchronise their movement to catch prey

Some spider species that live in groups of thousands on enormous webs synchronise their movements to catch insects up to 700 times heavier than an individual spider Life 7 March 2022 By Christa Lesté-Lasserre Some spider species hunt in packs, moving as one to catch their prey Spiders that hunt in packs use web vibrations … Read more

Predators Have Evolved to Not Overexploit Their Resources. Can Humans Do The Same?

People have been trying to understand how predators and prey are able to stay balanced within our planet’s ecosystems for at least 2,400 years. The Greek author Herodotus even raised the question in his historical treatise Histories, written around 430 BC.   And when Charles Darwin published in 1859 his revolutionary theory of evolution in … Read more

Startling Video From Yellowstone Shows Freeloading Grizzly Steal Prey From Wolves

A video by the team at Yellowstone national park shows the extraordinary sight of a grizzly bear hunting alongside a pack of wolves, only to make off with their prey.  The footage, posted to the National Parks Service Facebook page in December, shows the multi-species pack hunting a large herd of elks. A few wolves break away … Read more

Robots: Mechanical fish scares invasive species so badly it cannot breed

Eastern mosquitofish, a problem invasive species, can be prevented from reproducing using a robot fish that they find scary Technology 16 December 2021 By Matthew Sparkes A robotic fish (top) that mimics the natural predator of mosquitofish (bottom right) Giovanni Polverino Robotic fish might help solve an ecological problem by scaring an invasive fish species … Read more

Octopus behaviour: Gloomy octopus hatchlings seek out light to catch their tiny prey

Two-millimetre-long gloomy octopus hatchlings move towards a source of light, possibly because it makes it easier to hunt prey Life 16 December 2021 By Christa Lesté-Lasserre A newly hatched gloomy octopus Stefan Spreitzenbarth Tiny, newly hatched gloomy octopuses seek out light – possibly to help them find their minuscule prey. Adult gloomy octopuses (Octopus tetricus) … Read more