Point of View
Posted by cambell on March 7, 2005
Q: how do spiders communicate?
A: There are two different ways that come to mind about spider communication, although I'm sure there are many more. Many of the web-making spiders communicate with one another by vibrating the web. When a male spider enters the web of a female, he vibrates the web in a certain way to let her know he is there. As you can imagine, it's important for him not to vibrate the web like a struggling insect or he'll be captured and bitten. Those spiders with reasonably good eyesight, like the jumping spiders and tarantulas, have pedipalps, kind of like feelers or antennae, that they use to communicate. Males of these kinds of spiders have larger pedipalps than the females and they wave these about in a certain way to communicate with a female. If you can find a book on spiders, look to see if you can tell the males from the females by looking for pedipalps - the males have larger ones than the females.
John Wiessinger ( March 8, 2005)