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I’m back in Newfoundland for a vacation, and while mowing the lawn came across a bunch of baby spiders in a nest, that looked something like this:
(hat tip to Boby Dimitrov on Flickr)
It was quite a windy day, but when I crouched down to look at them, even the slightest breeze from my own breath caused them to disperse out from their tight bunch, much like these spiders are doing:
(hat tip to gardnergrout, on Flickr)
Being biocurious, I have been wondering, what’s the difference between a breeze and my own breath that the baby spiders ignore the former and run at the feel of the latter?
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Biocurious is written by Andre Brown and Philip Johnson, since 2005. Content of the weblog is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License.
Carbon dioxide, signaling a vertebrate predator?
Maybe it’s heat or infrared radiation from your breath.
Halitosis?
@Duncan I hope not. :)
The equivalent question exists for a physical perturbation. They’ll stay clumped together against transient wind, but any physical touch disperses them immediately.
I noticed a similar behaviour this summer with all the wasps that would constantly be trying to eat my sweet-sweet food.
If I swatted at them, they’d just go into their “evasive maneuvers” mode, but still try to get at my food.
If I held my breath for a bit, then gave ‘em a nice long exhale, they’d freak out and run away, and not come back for like 20 minutes. :D
Being a mammal has unrealized benefits!