Hot Off The Presses- Spider that "Hears" and its a Jumper too!

Nosiris

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Well they have the most advanced vision system of any animal that we know of, so I guess it shouldn't come as a surprise that they can hear as well?!?
 

viper69

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Well they have the most advanced vision system of any animal that we know of, so I guess it shouldn't come as a surprise that they can hear as well?!?
What makes you think their visual system is the most advanced? It depends upon how you define advanced... If you look at their anatomy, their visual system is more primitive than mammals.

They certainly don't see the range of the visible spectrum like we do for example.

Chameleons, for example, have incredible vision, including telescopic vision.

Other animals see in the ultraviolet spectrum for example.
 

basin79

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Well they have the most advanced vision system of any animal that we know of, so I guess it shouldn't come as a surprise that they can hear as well?!?

I'm sure the peacock mantis shrimp has a more advanced set of blinkers. Could well be wrong though.

And birds of prey such as the Golden eagle have ridiculous vision.

That said jumpers are unreal little inverts.
 

viper69

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I don't remember the speed nor the distance, but some raptors see amazing detail at such high rates of speed. The distances they see their prey is truly mind blowing. The peregrine falcon is another example.

Of all inverts, the octopus has the most advanced eye (yes, superior to the spider people), it's amazingly similar the human eye. The odd thing about octopi is despite their amazing color changes, they are color blind.
 

basin79

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I don't remember the speed nor the distance, but some raptors see amazing detail at such high rates of speed. The distances they see their prey is truly mind blowing. The peregrine falcon is another example.

Of all inverts, the octopus has the most advanced eye (yes, superior to the spider people), it's amazingly similar the human eye. The odd thing about octopi is despite their amazing color changes, they are color blind.
The peacock mantis beats that too.

http://phys.org/news/2013-09-mantis-shrimp-world-eyesbut.html
 

Nosiris

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Well I’m certainly no scientist and mainly big up the Salticid’s visual abilities to excite debate and highlight the fact that spiders certainly aren’t dumb ‘automatons’ as Descartes would have had it.

What does seem to be beyond doubt is that they enjoy the highest spatial resolution for any animal in relation to body size. Also possibly uniquely among inverts it can decide what sort of prey it is confronting purely by sight.

Some other things I find fascinating but don’t necessarily make them Olympic champions: They can still hunt and capture prey accurately by sight with their primary eyes completely covered – so their anterior laterals are capable of discerning detail AND are stereoscopic.

They have four layers of receptors in the retina, which have various functions but one is undoubtedly something called image defocus which enables them to assess distance without using motion parallax (as, for example, a cat would).

Salticids have four cone cell types for detecting colour (humans have three) and can thus operate in the ultraviolet range.

There’s a lot of research still to be done – for example the peculiar structure of the most superficial layer of the retina – it’s certainly not for resolving images.

However the main reason I often throw around the “finest vision system” label when the subject of Salticids comes up is what they appear to DO with the visual information – scanning the site of a planned ambush from multiple angles to ‘learn’ the geography for example, almost like they’re building up a 3D image to assist in the planning of the attack. Oh yes they do.
 

basin79

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Well I’m certainly no scientist and mainly big up the Salticid’s visual abilities to excite debate and highlight the fact that spiders certainly aren’t dumb ‘automatons’ as Descartes would have had it.

What does seem to be beyond doubt is that they enjoy the highest spatial resolution for any animal in relation to body size. Also possibly uniquely among inverts it can decide what sort of prey it is confronting purely by sight.

Some other things I find fascinating but don’t necessarily make them Olympic champions: They can still hunt and capture prey accurately by sight with their primary eyes completely covered – so their anterior laterals are capable of discerning detail AND are stereoscopic.

They have four layers of receptors in the retina, which have various functions but one is undoubtedly something called image defocus which enables them to assess distance without using motion parallax (as, for example, a cat would).

Salticids have four cone cell types for detecting colour (humans have three) and can thus operate in the ultraviolet range.

There’s a lot of research still to be done – for example the peculiar structure of the most superficial layer of the retina – it’s certainly not for resolving images.

However the main reason I often throw around the “finest vision system” label when the subject of Salticids comes up is what they appear to DO with the visual information – scanning the site of a planned ambush from multiple angles to ‘learn’ the geography for example, almost like they’re building up a 3D image to assist in the planning of the attack. Oh yes they do.
Portia jumpers seem to be unbelievable in their planning.
 

viper69

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Well I’m certainly no scientist and mainly big up the Salticid’s visual abilities to excite debate and highlight the fact that spiders certainly aren’t dumb ‘automatons’ as Descartes would have had it.

What does seem to be beyond doubt is that they enjoy the highest spatial resolution for any animal in relation to body size. Also possibly uniquely among inverts it can decide what sort of prey it is confronting purely by sight.

Some other things I find fascinating but don’t necessarily make them Olympic champions: They can still hunt and capture prey accurately by sight with their primary eyes completely covered – so their anterior laterals are capable of discerning detail AND are stereoscopic.

They have four layers of receptors in the retina, which have various functions but one is undoubtedly something called image defocus which enables them to assess distance without using motion parallax (as, for example, a cat would).

Salticids have four cone cell types for detecting colour (humans have three) and can thus operate in the ultraviolet range.

There’s a lot of research still to be done – for example the peculiar structure of the most superficial layer of the retina – it’s certainly not for resolving images.

However the main reason I often throw around the “finest vision system” label when the subject of Salticids comes up is what they appear to DO with the visual information – scanning the site of a planned ambush from multiple angles to ‘learn’ the geography for example, almost like they’re building up a 3D image to assist in the planning of the attack. Oh yes they do.
Reads almost like this http://phys.org/news/2012-01-spider-fuzzy-eyesight-distance.html

I know a scientist who studies Jumper's visual system. We had some amazing talks about what these little guys can do visually.
 
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