Inquiring Minds Want to Know...

Can jumping spiders kill in space???

http://www.cnn.com/2012/06/07/tech/innovation/space-spider-egypt-student/index.html

My money says the spiders velcro-like appendages will not leave the surface and this experiment will be heavily dependent on the type of prey offered, which will probably not leave the surface either. In most of the salticid hunting I've witnessed the spider remains attached to the surface when it strikes. They forgot about drag lines.

The loss of gravity will greatly affect their ability to perceive position and direction.

Interesting.

zonbonzovi said:

My money says the spiders velcro-like appendages will not leave the surface and this experiment will be heavily dependent on the type of prey offered, which will probably not leave the surface either. In most of the salticid hunting I've witnessed the spider remains attached to the surface when it strikes. They forgot about drag lines.

Click to expand...

jumps one, drifts. strugles to grab anything, gets the other side, learns to never jump again and hunts in smaller more direct assualts.

---------- Post added 06-08-2012 at 05:03 PM ----------

zonbonzovi said:

My money says the spiders velcro-like appendages will not leave the surface and this experiment will be heavily dependent on the type of prey offered, which will probably not leave the surface either. In most of the salticid hunting I've witnessed the spider remains attached to the surface when it strikes. They forgot about drag lines.

Click to expand...

jumps one, drifts. strugles to grab anything, gets the other side, learns to never jump again and hunts in smaller more direct assualts.

This is really an outstanding question, worthy of the exotic experimentation. Just how much does gravity effect a jumper?
-Does it compensate for trajectory. I doubt it. It is an expert marksman working at at relatively close range.
-Can a jumper release it's grip? A heck of a lot of kinetic energy in those jumps.
-"The loss of gravity will greatly affect their ability to perceive position and direction." Possible, but not fully taking the physiology of the jumper into account. It's brain cavity is mostly filled with eyesight hardware while inner ear type balancing is all but non existent.
-...learns to never jump again... It seems unlikely an unusual jump or two would over ride millions of years of genetic programming. The worlds greatest marksman gives up long distance shooting because of a few stray shots?

It jumps then hangs from it's life line, lowering itself down until it is able to grasp a surface. It's spatial awareness doesn't seem to exist. The paying out of the lifeline probably an autonomic response. Dangling for a few seconds or minutes, or never again contacting a solid surface... would it know or care? Maybe this is the salticid version of nirvana. The results of the experiment will certainly be interesting.

I would never discount the ability of an animal to adapt and survive. Animals have been doing it since the beginning of time, facing challenges far more drastic then a loss of gravity, in my humble opinion.

I tend to fall on the side of the coin that believe evolution is not a slow process of slow changes, but rather a slow process of massive changes, made in leaps and bounds.

Maybe, we might witness a slice of that through research like this.

I personally suspect the spider will learn very fast not to jump, and will start prowling and running to prey that has also lost an edge to the gravity.

Ciphor said:

I tend to fall on the side of the coin that believe evolution is not a slow process of slow changes, but rather a slow process of massive changes, made in leaps and bounds.

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I don't think learning something (which spiders probably aren't capable of) would pass through genetics. I disagree with your viewpoint.

le-thomas said:

I don't think learning something (which spiders probably aren't capable of) would pass through genetics. I disagree with your viewpoint.

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That might depend on what your expectations are. I'll admit I'm not very familiar with the body of research that's out there, but there are papers exploring various species of jumping spiders' ability to "learn." Here are a couple examples:

http://beheco.oxfordjournals.org/content/17/1/34.full

http://www.springerlink.com/content/xnj3mahver07evh5/

Interesting stuff.

Shrike, thanks much for those links. I am amazed at that learning ability, especially in an animal who's entire physiology seems to be oriented so completely to it's very specialized ambush predation.

le-thomas said:

I don't think learning something (which spiders probably aren't capable of) would pass through genetics. I disagree with your viewpoint.

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The entire scientific community and I humbly disagree with you. Also, learning would be the wrong word. Adapting is the word you were probably looking for here. Adaptations do pass through genetics tho, it's not a theory or speculation, it is fact. You are definitely entitled to your opinion however and can choice to disagree with adaptation.

I think what is in debate here, is how the spider will adapt, not if it will.

Ciphor said:

The entire scientific community and I humbly disagree with you. Also, learning would be the wrong word. Adapting is the word you were probably looking for here. Adaptations do pass through genetics tho, it's not a theory or speculation, it is fact. You are definitely entitled to your opinion however and can choice to disagree with adaptation.

I think what is in debate here, is how the spider will adapt, not if it will.

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I'm still waiting for updates on this, however I have been watching this thread.

I don't think the question is: will the spider try new tactics, but, which one would learn faster, prey or predator? Now if the spider retains this information on any sort of memory, I semi doubt, however, the spider realizing jumping, is not as it was, and failing- I think would be a pretty quick realization, perhaps it wont ever concieve why, but to a spider, it may not matter, simply that it does not.

The question should be: can jumping spiders kill in a space station...there is no breathable air in space....

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The question should be: can jumping spiders kill in a space station...there is no breathable air in space....

Verstuurd van mijn GT-I9001 met Tapatalk