You heard it from an early age. One of those unwritten rules of behavior in terms of what’s acceptable. Don’t throw your food.
But what about throwing yourself AT your food?
If you were a slingshot spider, that would simply be a part of your routine.
Found in the Amazon rainforest of Peru, the slingshot spider has one of the most unique ways of using its web to capture prey.
By itself, the spider’s web does not look too different than any other species of orb weaver spider’s web. Think of Charlotte’s web …that classic circular, flat spider web.
What makes our little friend’s use of its web so special is the extra, single strand of silk (called the tension line), that it anchored to vegetation behind the trap.
Sitting in the middle of its extremely stretchable web, the spider slowly pulls in the tension line, changing the previously flat web into the shape of a cone …sort of like pulling the band back on a slingshot. This action stores a tremendous amount of energy.
The trap is set. When the spider senses prey in front of the web, it lets go of the tension line, launching both the spider and its sticky web at its next potential meal.
While the distance the spider traveled is only a few centimeters, it does so at unprecedented speeds.
Researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology found that slingshot spiders store enough energy to produce acceleration of over 4,200 feet per second squared – 100 times the acceleration of a cheetah.
This subjects the arachnid to forces of approximately 130 Gs – more than 10 times what fighter pilots can withstand without blacking out.