[et_pb_section fb_built=”1″ _builder_version=”4.27.2″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”][et_pb_row _builder_version=”4.27.2″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”][et_pb_column type=”4_4″ _builder_version=”4.27.2″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.27.2″ _module_preset=”default” hover_enabled=”0″ global_colors_info=”{}” sticky_enabled=”0″]<\/p>\n
Imagine this. A large spider crawls across the floor of your room. You don\u2019t notice it at first, but as it crawls closer and closer you suddenly see it. Eek! You reach for a book and try to squash it, but before you can crush it, it runs away. Whether you realize it or not, it is possible that the spider left something behind when it felt threatened: its leg.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Examples of dropping a body part as a distraction can be found all throughout the animal kingdom. Some lizards drop their tails, some crabs drop their claws, and long-legged harvestmen spiders are able to drop their own leg when fleeing from a threat like you. However, there\u2019s a problem when they do this: they can never get their leg back, which could cause serious consequences for them as adults.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n What you need to understand first about these spiders is that at some point when growing up, they \u201cmolt\u201d into one of three types. One of the types has a much smaller body and is called a minor, while the other two, called majors, can be up to seven times larger than the first! Majors use their larger bodies to fight for mates, while minors avoid conflict, making it harder to mate. A recent study [1] wanted to know if dropping a leg as a kid causes these spiders to molt into minors.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n To test this, they looked at scars on the bodies of different havestmen, to see if they had dropped legs. Then, they looked deeper at the scars, which was actually able to tell them <\/span>when<\/span><\/i> the spider dropped its leg. Through this process, they were able to see if different body-sized harvestmen had dropped their legs as kids. After taking in all their data, they found that the ones who had dropped a leg were 45 times more likely to molt into a minor [1]!<\/span><\/p>\n So next time you think about attacking a spider, remember how doing it could affect its life down the line.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n References<\/span><\/p>\n 1. Powell, E, Painting, C, Machado, G, Holwell, G, 2023 Juvenile leg autotomy predicts adult male morph in a New Zealand harvestman with weapon polymorphism. <\/span>Behavioral Ecology <\/span><\/i>34<\/b>, 613-620. <\/span><\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][\/et_pb_section]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Imagine this. A large spider crawls across the floor of your room. You don\u2019t notice it at first, but as it crawls closer and closer you suddenly see it. Eek! You reach for a book and try to squash it, but before you can crush it, it runs away. Whether you realize it or not, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":116,"featured_media":2743,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"on","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[16,15],"tags":[19,20],"class_list":["post-2741","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-animal-tales-for-kids","category-anti-predator-behavior","tag-animal-tales","tag-animal-tales-for-kids"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/animaltales.kenyoncip.org\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2741","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/animaltales.kenyoncip.org\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/animaltales.kenyoncip.org\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/animaltales.kenyoncip.org\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/116"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/animaltales.kenyoncip.org\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2741"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/animaltales.kenyoncip.org\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2741\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2755,"href":"https:\/\/animaltales.kenyoncip.org\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2741\/revisions\/2755"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/animaltales.kenyoncip.org\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2743"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/animaltales.kenyoncip.org\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2741"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/animaltales.kenyoncip.org\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2741"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/animaltales.kenyoncip.org\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2741"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}