The Australian huntsman spider. Photo: Sam Gordon/Flickr (CC BY 2.0)
The Australian huntsman spider. Photo: Sam Gordon/Flickr (CC BY 2. For anyone with arachnophobia, the only thing worse than finding a lone spider dangling in a doorway or resting on your rear-view mirror is finding a whole cluster. While most spiders are creatures of solitude, a study involving researchers from The Australian National University (ANU) has found some species have become more gregarious. Spiders including the Australian huntsman have evolved to be more social, according to Professor Alexander Mikheyev from the ANU Research School of Biology. "When we think of spiders, we tend to think of the ones that just hang in the web or sit in the corner and kill things," he says. "But certain species of spider have independently evolved in a very similar way to become more social." At a hypothetical Australian spider gathering, it's the huntsman spiders that would be hanging out in a group while others lurked in corners on their own.
TO READ THIS ARTICLE, CREATE YOUR ACCOUNT
And extend your reading, free of charge and with no commitment.
