That jumping spider can hear you from across the room
Thursday, October 13, 2016 - 11:01
in Biology & Nature
According to the standard textbooks, spiders are acutely sensitive to airborne vibrations from nearby sources. That is, they are supposed to respond to sounds and "hear," but only when the sound is coming from a few centimeters or so away. Now, researchers reporting in Current Biology on October 13 have found that jumping spiders, and most likely other spiders too, can actually hear sounds over much greater distances.