Scientists finally know what created these mysterious structures!
Three months ago in September, graduate student Troy Alexander discovered an odd structure attached to a tree in the Southern Peruvian Amazon while traveling on an expedition.
About one week ago on December 10th, Phil Torres, a graduate student and entomologist at Rice University led a research team into the Peruvian Amazon to take macroscopic photos of the bizarre silken structures. The research team had been keeping very close watch on approximately forty structures they discovered on an island near the Tambopata Research Center in Peru.
The silk structures are comprised of 2 distinct and very intricate parts: a tall “tower” in the center, and a circular “fence” that averages about 6 millimeters across. Of the approximately 40 structures the team has located, about half of them were constructed on cecropia trees, many on bamboo trees, and still others were found on leaves. Most of them were built in clusters of between two and six structures.
A clue emerged from one of the structure “towers” that had been knocked over. An extremely high-res photo revealed what was speculated as a single ruptured egg at it’s base. Curiouser and curiouser. This only raised more questions: Are these structures some sort of elaborate egg sack? Why is there only a single egg, why not more than one? Perhaps they aren’t eggs at all but spermatophores — a type of gift package that contain sperm and other nutrients that some insects and spiders exchange during mating.
The team collected six of the structures to take back to the research center where they observed them very closely for six days. The “towers” were isolated from one another into different containers to ensure that there would be no doubts as to what was contained within each structure. The wait paid off finally on December 16th when two of the eggs hatched and two very tiny spiderlings were observed crawling around the base of the silk structure. Another one hatched the next day, confirming that the structures were indeed constructed by spiders and not a moth or other insect that utilized silk. “That really confirmed it for me,” Torres said. “Anything we saw crawling in there had to have come out of the structure.”
But what species of spider? A spider that had been consistently spotted around the area was the Huntsman or Corpse spider, named for it’s grisly collection of dead insects it uses to decorate it’s web. This is currently the top contender suspected of constructing the silken structures and can be confirmed once the spiderlings grow into adult spiders.
Sources and further reading:
http://io9.com/scientists-finally-know-what-created-these-mysterious-r-1487367394
http://sciencethat.com/
wow! awesome post (edit: i had been wondering about this since the discovery)
ReplyDeletei'm going to make a prediction here and say that the spider it grows into is one previously not known to science.
I was not surprised that was a spidy but I'm still amazed about the structure, is pretty cool.
ReplyDeleteSpiderEngineer =)
Nature is really impressive, such intricate detail at such a small scale
ReplyDeleteVrai! Sam Collett
ReplyDeletePerhaps the 'fence' is to protect it from other insects. There has to be some purpose for it, I doubt there is the concept of 'art' to spiders, but who knows for sure?
ReplyDeleteFor sure the tiny structure has a purpose...we just need to wait and observe the little spidy.
ReplyDeleteI am amazed that the mama spider goes through all this work (it is a very intricate structure) for just one egg each! That's a lot of parenting effort for each egg, which is surprising given that spiders usually rely on quantity rather then quality, for survival.
ReplyDeletePerhaps the secret is patience =) Massimo Marengo
ReplyDeleteSam Collett I agree it looks like it is intended for protection. The outer fence looks like it protects from crawlies and the central prong against things that would fly in. I wonder if the material doesn't have some repellant chemical or if it is surfaced in some way that dissuades potential predators from contact with it.
ReplyDelete