This Spider Pretends To Be Prey To Hunt Black Widows

This Spider Pretends To Be Prey To Hunt Black Widows There is a spider hanging upside down in the corner of your basement right now, in a loose, messy little web, and you have probably already decided it is harmless. It is almost nothing. A body smaller than a grain of rice on eight legs so thin they look like they would snap in a breeze. But that fragile thing is one of the most effective spider-killers in your house. Its trick is to walk into the web of something far more dangerous than itself, pretend to be its dinner, and eat the host instead. It even hunts black widows. And it usually wins. In this video we get into how the cellar spider actually pulls this off, from the venom myth that made everyone afraid of the wrong thing, to the aggressive mimicry it uses to lie to other spiders by plucking their webs, to the reason a fragile daddy longlegs beats a black widow that could put you in the hospital. The answer is not venom. It is reach, patience, and one very good con. If you love the small animals that quietly break every rule of nature, subscribe. The list keeps getting worse.