“We humans always think we’re the best
at everything, and in the natural world,
those spiders are doing something that’s
pretty difficult.” Other critters, includ-
ing trap-jaw spiders and mantis shrimp,
can move certain appendages such as
claws or mouthparts at speeds of 30 to
80 kilometers per hour (20 to 50 miles
per hour), she says. But slingshot spi-
ders are using an external tool, a web, to
snare their prey, and they’re working at
speeds faster than their nervous systems
can monitor, so they have to plan ahead
and essentially let their spring and latch
system control what happens after they
let go of the tension thread. “It’s super-
power-type stuff,” Patek says.Theridiosomatidae aren’t com-
pletely unique in this respect, however.
Spiders in the Hyptiotes genus also use
orb webs to actively hunt. Hyptiotes
spiders move at slower accelerations—
a mere 772.85 m/s^2 , compared with the
Theridiosomatidae’s 1300 m/s^2 —yet
they load energy in their webs simi-
larly, then rocket toward p r e y, unleash-
ing additional silk threads onto their
victims to finalize the capture. When
the spider stops itself suddenly by
clamping down on its tension thread
with its legs, the resulting jerk on the
web wraps the capture threads around
its prey from all directions (PNAS,
116:12060–65, 2019).What’s fascinating is the amount of
energy the spiders can store in their web
and then unleash to catch their prey,
says Sarah Han, a graduate student in
biologist Todd Blackledge’s lab at the
University of Akron. With Blackledge,
she wants to investigate how the web-
bing material, typically thought to dis-
perse energy, can, in fact, store energy,
a characteristic that might inform
the design of synthetic silk. Han also
recently began collaborating with Alex-
ander, who will be starting her own
lab at Auburn University in 2021, and
Bhamla on Theridiosomatidae, to look
at how those spiders have evolved their
slingshot systems. Now that high-speed
camera footage can offer scientists a
frame-by-frame view of what the arach-
nids are doing, Patek says, “it just opens
up a myriad of areas of research in evo-
lution, neuroscience, materials science,
and human engineering.”
—Ashley YeagerAntibodies shown: KIF14 (A300-912A)
©2019 Bethyl Laboratories, Inc.
All rights reserved.
Full-spectrum
scalability
Raise the bar on reliability with
high-quality antibodies in bulkWhen scaling up, consistency counts. For more than 45
years, Bethyl has manufactured and validated all bulk
antibodies in-house to exacting standards, ensuring
reliable results. And that means every one of our nearly
10,000 catalog products are available in large-scale
formats. From antiserum generation to large-scale
conjugation, our proven process controls enable
the scaling and customization of products based
on your needs. Work with Bethyl to bring your
discovery into full focus.See our data at
bethyl.com/bulkabs
Instead of waiting for something to collide with it, the
spider is going after things... actually catching flying
insects in midair. —Saad Bhamla, Georgia Tech