My black widows were relocated to new empty cages, and overnight they filled them with beautiful, intricate cobwebs, like this one.
It looks chaotic, but I can trace a couple of gumfoot lines in there that have bracing to allow them to hoist up any prey that stumbles into them.
You’ve been feeding them LSD again, haven’t you? Or maybe caffeine.
In your Patreon post about this, you said you were going to start assessing web construction to determine the method to their madness. I wondered whether AI might help with this. Astrophysicists have used AI to research the evolution of complex patterns in the cosmos. Particle physicists are using it to suss out quantum physics. I don’t know how to do it, but it seems like spider web construction patterns might yield to that kind of approach.
SpiderBot experiments hint at “echolocation” to locate prey
I’d rather not use AI — I don’t trust it. I think motion analysis of video would be more informative, and also comparison of different species might show informative differences. Or if they’re all the same, even more interesting!
@1
You might be on to something. The one on Chloral Hydrate must have starved.
https://www.miragenews.com/nasas-experiment-with-spiders-mind-altering-996703/
I tried to find exclusively spider content from one of my favorite wildlife focused creators and instead wound up on the lamentations of the ant. I’d rather be a spider. My flattie pals have abandoned me for a while now. They’ll be back!
Hell can be other ants, other insects, flukes, etc: