Overview
- An international team led by researchers at the University of Greifswald and Australian collaborators documented and filmed the behavior in the field and reported the findings in Current Biology after months of observation and 35 recorded predation events.
- The spider builds multiple long tensioned threads and a cone-shaped silk structure that ants bite, which then releases and catapults the bitten ant into the spider’s central web by releasing stored elastic energy.
- Measured launches reached speeds up to 4.4 meters per second, a performance the authors describe as among the most powerful trapping systems known because the force comes from stored silk tension rather than muscle power.
- All documented captures involved the green weaver ant (Oecophylla smaragdina) and experimental tests suggest strong prey specialization, with other ant species failing to react to the trap in the same way.
- The team hypothesizes the spider applies chemical cues to the silk cone to attract or provoke weaver ants but that mechanism remains untested, and the species has not yet received a formal scientific name.