Day 71 - the spider that mimics an ant
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| These are ants - marching across the trail in Adyar. |
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| And here's a closeup of one of those marching ants. I do not which one, maybe some helpful soul will identify it one of these days. And note, there are two types - a bigger one and a kutty one. |
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| And this here on the leaf was at first sight another ant, as far as I knew. Until Sagarika ordered me to look closely and count the legs. |
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| And so I did. (I am obedient.). Whaat? 8 legs. You can count too. And then there was another one under some kind of veil. |
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Ant-mimic Spiders! Genus Myrmarachne - The name is a combination of Ancient Greek (myrmex), meaning "ant", and(arachne), meaning "spider", according to Wiki. |
How fascinating! They don’t just look like ants—they also behave like them. They are supposedly imitating a more "dangerous" creature to avoid predators. Ants are aggressive, chemically defended, and usually live in large colonies, so many predators avoid them. Spiders tap into this protection by pretending to be ants. I tried to wrap my human mind around this interesting phenomenon - humans fear spiders more than ants. All a matter of perspective.
As I watched it, it really even walked like an ant! A jerky, stop-and-go here-and-there kind of motion. And those front pair of legs - now and then waved it also, like antennae. Fooled me completely!
Usually, female spiders are much larger than males, but in this Genus, it seems that roles are reversed?
I dont know this for sure, but I feel the one on the left is the male - "larger, elongated set of “jaws” (chelicerae) sticking forward. These are typical of males, which use them for fighting with rivals and courtship displays. This gives the “head” a bulkier look compared to a real ant." - As per CHatGPT
The top right one was under a kind of thin film, and maybe she was guarding eggs? Female, says ChatGPT- "a slimmer, smoother face without the exaggerated jaws, which matches the female form. Females tend to be more convincing ant mimics because their proportions are closer to actual ants."
Go figure!
Next time I shall be watching more carefully.
How nice of you write about two of the most interesting non humans in a single post. You are correct, the male spider is the one thats bigger. A YT link tell more about the female in veil https://youtu.be/Ef2TpHHL3VI?si=CPe_Awdq9waz_QD5.
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing! I shall embed that video in the post.
Deletehttps://www.antwiki.org/wiki/Pheidole - the other ant that we saw is this. both same major and minor worker. Quoting from internet "In Pheidole ants, discrete major and minor workers refer to the worker caste, which is divided into two distinctly sized and morphologically different groups: the numerous minor workers and the less numerous, larger-headed major workers (also called soldiers). Minors focus on general tasks like brood care, nest maintenance, and foraging, while majors, with their massive mandibles and large heads, specialize in colony defense and processing hard-to-crack seeds. This dimorphism is a defining characteristic of the Pheidole genus and is a key factor in their success and hyperdiversity."
ReplyDeleteOh! Thanks for this - it leads to many questions - Once a minor worker, always a minor worker I suppose? I wish we use some other word, for this.
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