Title text:
‘Ugh, I’m never going to be like spiders. My descendants will all just be normal arthropods who mind their own busines and don’t do anything weird.’ --The ancestor of a bunch of eusocial insects
Transcript:
Transcript will show once it’s been added to explainxkcd.com
Source: xkcd.com/3199/
Jankatarch@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Spiders always confused me because my limited understanding of evolution. Traits build up over generations instead of being gained overnight, no?
Was there a generation of ancestor spiders that could make very little amount of string and couldn’t build webs yet, but it did help them survive and reproduce nonethless?
Cocodapuf@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Ok, well first off, hunting spiders are a thing, so arachnids can be effective predators without webs. So what do those spiders use web for? I believe they use them to make those fuzzy egg sacks or nests, so protective structures in general. I could totally see that evolving first, the ability to make silk for building nests. Actually many different species have evolved something like that, using excretions to aid in nest building, birds, ants, fish, insects, it’s actually a relatively common trait to develop. Nests are good for hiding, protection from the elements and thermal insulation, a home is nice to have!
I could see it become beneficial if some spiders then developed sticky nests, sometimes bugs might wander in and get stuck, free meal. And then after that, some might develop larger nests, the greater the area of this sticky nest, the more effective it is. And that basically gets us to modern sliders.
bunnyBoy@pawb.social 1 day ago
All of this sounds fine and good, but the jump to people with supernatural powers over electronics was a bit of a stretch at the end
Amuletta@lemmy.ca 23 hours ago
Some spiders still don’t spin elaborate webs. I see a lot of crab spiders in my back yard. Their hunting strategy is just to sit motionless in the middle of a flower and grab pollinators, which why they come in floral colours like yellow or white.