Cornell Video

Net-casting spiders spin small webs which they hold with their four front legs. They plop these webs down on insects crawling nearby and also use them to catch flying insects. These spiders have enormous eyes that are about 2000 times more sensitive to light than ours. Jay Stafstrom, a researcher at the University of Nebraska, has found that blinded net-casting spiders cannot catch crawling prey, but are still perfectly capable of snaring flying insects. In Ron Hoy's lab at Cornell, Gil Menda has recorded from the spider's brain and found that they, like mosquitoes, are sensitive to low frequency sounds, but they are also sensitive to high frequencies, near 5,000 Hz. The function of this high frequency hearing is still a mystery.