Some species have an incredible knack for hacking others to get what they want. Scientists have now discovered a fascinating new example – some spiders have been seen manipulating fireflies’ flashes to attract more bugs to their webs.
There’s nothing more wholesome than the gorgeous glow of fireflies lighting up the balmy twilight of late summer. Well, don’t tell the kids, but those insects are actually looking to get lucky. Males will fly around flashing their two lanterns in multi-pulse patterns, trying to get the attention of females, who tend to stay in one place and flash their one lantern in single-pulse patterns. When the ladies signal their interest, the men swoop in.
Intriguingly, certain spiders have apparently figured out how to take advantage of this. Male fireflies that were trapped in the webs of orb-weaving spiders were found to switch their flashing patterns to look like those emitted by females, bringing all the boys to the yard.
The study was kicked off when first author Xinhua Fu noticed that fireflies caught in spider webs seemed to be almost exclusively male. Intrigued as to why, the researchers monitored 161 webs, and compared the flashing patterns of free male and female fireflies, as well as webbed ones, and whether or not a spider was present.
It turns out, it wasn’t just the fireflies freaking out and flashing a distress beacon or something. The researchers noted that when the spider wasn’t home, captured fireflies didn’t seem to lure more males. The spider seemed to be actively controlling the signals – they were seen performing a specialized cycle of wrapping and biting on fireflies that they didn’t do on other insects, or even on fireflies that had their lanterns blacked out by the researchers.
“Upon detecting the bioluminescent signals of ensnared male fireflies, the spider deploys a specialized prey-handling procedure involving repeated wrap-bite attacks,” said Daiqin Li, co-author of the study.
Whether it’s something in the spider’s venom, or just the act of biting itself, that triggers the change in firefly signaling remains to be seen, the team says. More research could help answer that question, as well as potentially find other examples of animals cleverly “hacking” their prey to catch more, or aid their own life cycle.
The most famous story might be the “zombie ant fungus,” which drives its infected prey against its will to a nice high position, allowing the fungus to grow and release spores down to infect more ants. You might even have a similar parasite yourself – Toxoplasma gondii, found in soil and cat poop. But don’t worry, it’s just trying to get back to its favored home in cat intestines, and it could make you sexier and more entrepreneurial to achieve that goal.
The new research was published in the journal Current Biology.
Source: Cell Press via Scimex