“Considering that spiders can already make really impressive geometric designs with their webs, it’s no surprise that they can take that leap to make an impressive design with debris and other things,”
Sure, but what is more interesting is how such a spider would know what itself looks like.
I would recommend reading "Sex on Six Legs: Lessons on Life, Love, and Language from the Insect World" by Marlene Zuk. It's a truly wonderful book about insects (and spiders too), about their evolution, and about how little brain power is required to display complex behavior.
Here are a few of my favorite, more on the philosophical side, quotes from the book:
Insects bring home the uneasy truth that you don't need a big brain to do big
things, and that in turn makes us question how the mind and, dare to say it,
the spirit, are related to the brain. It even makes us question what it means
to be human. What does it mean to have complex behavior? Does it mean you are
smart?
Natural selection can produce what looks uncannily like intelligent thought or
emotion but is no more than the relentless culling of minute variations in genetic
makeup, generation after generation, for millions of years. Not only that, but
insects too have small personalities, with some showing boldness in new situations
and some hanging back with what looks an awful lot like shyness. It's turning out
that we haven't cornered the market on individuality, either.
Insects are starting to answer the question of "What does it take?"—to have a
personality, to learn, to teach others, to change the world around them—with the
humbling and perplexing answer, "Not much." Humbling because they do these things
with brains the size of a pinhead, and perplexing because if that's all it takes,
what does that mean for us, with our gigantic forebrains and exhaustingly long
periods of childhood dependency?
It doesn't have to know what it looks like; it only needs to "know" what its predator's food looks like, or rather, what its predators are more likely to hunt.
And that probably is "know", as in "built into its genes through evolutionary trial and error". It is not likely this is something mothers learn their children, or that they adapt the looks of their decoys within days if researchers let new predators loose (either might be true, but would truly be surprising)
There's no need for the spider to know what itself looks like. If it builds something that increases survival/reproduction, that trait will be selected for.
The spiders’ webs were crafted around face-height, near the trail
This makes me wonder if it was selected for stopping humans from wrecking their webs! It would explain why the decoys look like spiders, to humans.
Looking at the original article, it appears that the most spider like decoy photograph was chosen based on the appearance to humans - i.e. one with 8 legs which presumably you counted just as I did.
What appears spider-like to a fly, could be dramatically different - I'm imagining the process of trying to count appendages through a compound eye with a fly's brain and in the absence of the cultural system of symbols we use to represent numbers, etc.
It doesn't. It just likes to stick bits to its web in patterns. Feels good, (spider) man.
Something like this:
1. get bit of leaf.
2. go to center of web.
3. while standing on leaf bits, go down (with G).
4. drop bit of leaf, leaving gap to the left and right.
5. if more than 20 paces from the center. Forget it, relax.
6. goto 1.
With a bit of fiddling I have no doubt you can write a simple program to produce these shapes.
If you find this interesting, check YouTube for termite and wasp nest videos. Incredible!
The process of producing decoy shapes isn't really a problem. Why these spiders made the shapes is more interesting.
I think that the spiders that didn't create these decoy structures were selected against in the evolutionary process. The production of decoys could have been genetically engrained into their instinct (via mutation), or, this species really are actually able to recognize itself and create a decoy -- both of these cases would have led to less of them being eaten by predators, hence natural selection.
I can't wait to hear the results of the study after they research it more closely!
Not that strong. For printer, the shape of a W is an external input. This spider outputs something resembling its own shape. So the question is here, why this and not something else (like randomly shaped clump), and how did it acquire this particular decoy blueprint.
Having trouble viewing the video but what's blowing my mind right now is that in the picture I see, it has created a decoy with 8 legs. How does it know??
The writer/editor chose that picture. Scroll down and there's a 5-legged decoy. It's still cool, but they chose the most impressive picture to lead with.
pron|13 years ago
Here are a few of my favorite, more on the philosophical side, quotes from the book:
pagliara|13 years ago
Someone|13 years ago
And that probably is "know", as in "built into its genes through evolutionary trial and error". It is not likely this is something mothers learn their children, or that they adapt the looks of their decoys within days if researchers let new predators loose (either might be true, but would truly be surprising)
6ren|13 years ago
unknown|13 years ago
[deleted]
VMG|13 years ago
brudgers|13 years ago
http://blog.perunature.com/2012/12/new-species-of-decoy-spid...
What appears spider-like to a fly, could be dramatically different - I'm imagining the process of trying to count appendages through a compound eye with a fly's brain and in the absence of the cultural system of symbols we use to represent numbers, etc.
See Thomas Nagel's What is it Like to Be a Bat? http://books.google.com/books?id=fBGPBRX3JsQC&pg=PA165#v...
return0|13 years ago
CamperBob2|13 years ago
jayflux|13 years ago
robotresearcher|13 years ago
Something like this:
1. get bit of leaf. 2. go to center of web. 3. while standing on leaf bits, go down (with G). 4. drop bit of leaf, leaving gap to the left and right. 5. if more than 20 paces from the center. Forget it, relax. 6. goto 1.
With a bit of fiddling I have no doubt you can write a simple program to produce these shapes.
If you find this interesting, check YouTube for termite and wasp nest videos. Incredible!
mirkules|13 years ago
I think that the spiders that didn't create these decoy structures were selected against in the evolutionary process. The production of decoys could have been genetically engrained into their instinct (via mutation), or, this species really are actually able to recognize itself and create a decoy -- both of these cases would have led to less of them being eaten by predators, hence natural selection.
I can't wait to hear the results of the study after they research it more closely!
ry0ohki|13 years ago
VMG|13 years ago
Fargren|13 years ago
jre|13 years ago
Probably those spiders are the result of a similar evolutionary process.
mediocregopher|13 years ago
http://unionid.missouristate.edu/gallery/L_reeveiana/Reevian...
EDIT: looks like jre beat me to it
seiji|13 years ago
TeMPOraL|13 years ago
skc|13 years ago
robotresearcher|13 years ago
solox3|13 years ago
solox3|13 years ago