This places the triangle-weaver spider alongside humans as the other known species to amplify muscular energy with external devices.
A study published on Monday has found that an arachnid species is capable of winding up its web to store up elastic energy, before releasing its grip and catapulting itself at furious speed toward its unsuspecting prey., alongside humans as the other known species to amplify muscular energy with external devices, a feat people achieve with crossbows or ballistae.
Han and colleagues observed the spiders under lab conditions, recording high-speed videos of them as they hunted flies. They confirmed that the action was a result of latent energy stored in the silk being released, as opposed to just jumping using the power of its legs, by calculating the total power generated and finding it vastly exceeded the potential output of its muscle mass alone.According to the study, using a constructed device as a weapon offered numerous advantages, freeing the spider from the need to evolve specialized anatomy to generate and store energy.
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