 |
COSTA RICA |
| |
They're
Spiders, But Not As We Know Them
By AjA Styles
The Bagheera Kiplingi, a neo-tropical
jumping spider found in south-eastern Mexico
and north-western Costa Rica, dines
primarily on specialized leaf tips found on
ant-Acacia trees.
The find is extremely rare given that
jumping spiders have advanced colour-vision,
agility, and cognitive skills to prey upon
invertebrates.
American and Canadian researchers studied
the spiders' foraging behaviour between 2001
and 2008, and took high-definition video
footage.
Their findings will today be published in
Elsevier science journal.
Ninety-one per cent of the Mexican spiders'
diet consisted of the leaf tips, while the
Costa Rican spiders' diet comprised 60 per
cent tips.
The spiders occasionally supplemented the
leaf tips with extra-floral nectar found in
the trees.
They also preyed on larvae from the ant
colonies, which lived in those particular
acacias and fed on the leaf tips, and small
nectar-feeding flies.
The scientists found that while the leaf
tips were enriched in sugar and protein,
they were 80 per cent structural fibre and
thus poor substitutes for animal prey.
Given that no other spider is known to feed
on vegetation, the spider's digestive
physiology is believed to have become
specialized to process such a fibrous,
nitrogen-poor material.
Scientists believe the year-round
availability of the plant food, combined
with indirect benefits of where they lived,
may explain how the spider’s carnivorous
ancestor became an herbivore.
"We observed (spiders) circumventing the
well-known defenses of the acacia’s
ant-inhabitants, which keep the plant free
of most herbivores and encroaching
vegetation," the report said.
Researchers have found the world's first
predominantly vegetarian spider. |
|
|
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
|
