Best Spider Moments | Top 5 | BBC Earth

[Music] to help her in her quest she's equipped with three super powers first an amazing approach to getting about [Music] porsche is a jumping spider able to leap up to 50 times her own body length [Music] nowhere seems beyond her reach her second superpower superb eyesight [Music] essential if she's to distinguish her prey in all this clutter because her prey doesn't stray porsche is a spider-eating spider this raises a few problems her lunch is three times her size [Music] packed with venom and surrounded by a sticky trap mission impossible not at all because of her third superpower porsche is a genius she can map her world in three dimensions [Music] and formulate a plan of attack [Music] she can have an idea [Music] the web builder is blind it won't have a clue that she's coming [Music] [Music] right on target and safely behind those fangs but a mind as active as porsches can always do with more brain food [Music] here there's no anchor point for the abseil but porsche has another idea instead of going to the spider [Music] she will bring the spider to her [Music] she plucks the strands to imitate struggling prey [Music] drawing the spider in [Music] to its death [Music] spider silk with the scent of a female he just needs to follow it wherever it leads him [Music] [Music] other males have gone on the same quest and have come to a grizzly end [Music] here's the female and she doesn't look very amorous [Music] in fact she kills every male who doesn't match up to her expectations [Music] what can he do to win her over [Music] dance [Music] dance for his life he will need a show-stopping trick to avoid becoming lunch [Music] with his fan unfilled he begins an ever more complicated series of dance moves to try and seduce her [Music] at last she succumbs to his advances and allows him to mate with her [Music] he matched her expectations [Music] but she kills him anyway right here's one hey now that is a trapdoor spider now these spiders are amazing they live permanently inside a silk lined tube and they just make a little lid out of debris and soil and silk and it fits absolutely perfectly onto that hole hidden behind the trapdoor the spider detects its prey through ultra sensitive hairs on its legs when it feels vibration it springs the trap so if i get a stick and i just lever it up you can see yeah in there you see it now he's in there okay so he he's gonna wait until an insect crawls past all we've got to do now is to sit here and wait these spiders remain safely hidden day and night they only risk emerging for a split second under the cover of darkness to snatch their victim oh here's a qriket look look a tree cricket a very small one it's just it's just beneath the lip it's pretty now it's it's just millimeters from the edge of the lid and it's it stopped and it's preening its antennae and leg now the lid's moved just a fraction so the spider is aware it's there yes got it look at that did you see that that was so quick this is just one of the ingenious hunting strategies spiders have evolved one creature is determined not to miss his chance patagonia's male wandering tarantulas are searching for love this male [Music] you'll barely eat or sleep [Music] this is what he's looking for silken threads left by a female impregnated with her pheromones chemical love letters advertising her availability they lead him to her lair she can live for 30 years she's seen many suitors in the past he taps a seductive rhythm to tempt her out she replies for him this is a very dangerous liaison he eyes her up if he's not her type she'll eat him [Music] but this male has a talent for seduction he tendedly strokes her body she relaxes opening her fangs allowing him to move closer he carefully delivers his packet of spam during mating the female falls into a trance-like state [Music] she stays like this for several minutes he has to make a quick getaway before it wears off for tarantulas lingering goodbyes are generally fatal it's called darwin's bark spider and the female has a remarkable strategy [Music] [Music] like a real-life spider woman she sprays strands of silk in one long continuous flow the threads fan out like a sail and drift on air currents blowing across the water every few seconds she crimps the strands together to stop them spreading too widely the breeze will do the rest blowing the threads into a single line and a 25 meter bridge now she must reinforce her bridge because her web will hang from it [Music] but there's something bouncing the line at the other end another darwin spider is trying to take advantage of her hard work [Music] she must deal with the intruder head on [Music] the cut line is an inconvenience but no more than that with hooks on the tips of each leg she gathers in the thread [Music] it won't go to waste as she'll eat it later [Music] when it's all reeled in she sprays again [Music] out streams another 25 meter bridging line [Music] how a spider no bigger than a thumbnail can produce so much silk so quickly has baffled scientists and it's no ordinary silk it's the toughest natural fiber on the planet tougher than steel [Music] and it needs to be tough to spam the wide river with the bridge taut and the ground anchor in place it's time to construct her trap [Music] latest orb webs up to two meters wide [Music] a few hours from the first spray of bridging line the job is done [Music] now her strategy is simple sit and wait [Music] and there's one final bout of silk production shrink-wrapping her food for later [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] foreign

Channel: BBC Earth

Views: 4,282,070

Keywords: bbc documentary, bbc, bbcearth, bbc earth, spiders mating, spiders fighting, spiders, jumping spider, dancing spider, bbc earth spiders, bbc spider, spider documentary, bbc earth spider, natural history

Id: uHyYtcMZYGs

Length: 17min 31sec (1051 seconds)

Published: Sun May 30 2021