Inside a dark laboratory, a little spider hangs in front of a computer screen. Rather than a silk line suspending it from above, a complex cylindrical apparatus seems to hold it in place. The spider’s feet touch a plastic ball covered with small dark patches. As images move across the computer monitor, the spider tries to turn and its moving legs rotate the ball, capturing the motion precisely.
This curious setup allowed researchers led by Massimo De Agrò and Paul S. Shamble from Harvard University, USA, to make an interesting discovery. They found that jumping spiders can distinguish living creatures from non-living ones by their motion, an ability that was hitherto only known to be possessed by vertebrates (backboned creatures, e.g., mammals and birds).
Read the rest of this story on my blog, The Scientific Lens.