Spider caught on video for the first time attacking and eating a shrew
For the first time, a Steatoda nobilis spider was caught on video attacking and eating a shrew. The size of the spider is much smaller than the victim it attacked.
According to Science Alert, it turned out that the widow spider, which is only 1.5 cm in size, is capable of hunting vertebrates, including lizards, bats, and now shrews.
For example, in southern England, a video showed a Steatoda nobilis attacking a shrew (Sorex minutus), which is about 10 cm long, and starting to wrap it in a web. The spider's victim looked like a giant compared to the predator.
Read also: A scary-looking spider turned out to be perhaps the most shy creature on Earth (photo)
"Although vertebrates are often on the menu for larger spiders, including members of the tarantula family, they pose a different problem for small spiders such as the noble false widow, which cannot 'quarrel' with reptiles or mammals like the tarantula.
So, like real widow spiders (including the infamous black widow and red-spotted spiders), the noble false widow copes with large prey with the help of potent venom and strong silk," the report says.
University of Galway zoologist Don Sturgis noted that the shrew was still alive when the spider wrapped it up. This could mean that the spider injected a powerful neurotoxic venom into the prey, causing rapid neuromuscular paralysis.
The spider then lifted the shrew about 25 centimetres using its web, wrapping it around itself. It is noted that it fed on the victim for three days. He threw the remains of the victim - skin and skeleton - out of the web.
Scientists say that the spider managed to capture the shrew when it crawled onto a wisteria bush near the bedroom window. There, he "captured it with silk," paralysed it with poison, and then lifted it up to the rafters.
Earlier, scientists had shown how the parasite broke out of the spider's body.
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