Spiders - The Whole Story S01E02 - The Secrets of Nature

[Music] hello [Music] [Music] small as a pinhead or big as a dinner plate multicolored or bizarrely shaped spiders are extraordinary supreme hunters among invertebrates and the earth's most numerous predators they are too nature's master silk weavers but the stuff these small creatures spin for everyday use is strong enough to aid space technology [Music] long ago the moon beckoned a spider and sent him to earth with this message for its people just as i'm reborn every evening so you too will be reborn spider ran slowly down to earth on long silken threads to deliver his precious message [Music] but he was overtaken by a speedy hair as inquisitive as he was quick he asked the spider where he was going and pestered him until he knew where and why [Music] but spider you're too slow he said it's almost day the moon is dying the people will never believe the message i'll take it for you but he forgot the exact words and instead he said the moon sent me to say as i die and vanish so you will too for good however the spider has never given up trying to pass on the correct message and he still spins his webs today in a vain attempt to do so [Music] spiders may be bad at taking messages but they're very good at surviving they're extremely numerous and belong to the world's largest group of land animals the arthropods two-thirds of all spider families live in africa and their size varies tremendously from a 12 millimeter community spider to something almost as big as a saucer and very hairy a baboon spider all spiders have eight legs fangs and they make silk the delicate fiber that so typifies them spiders are arachnid members of the arthropod family but not all arachnids are spiders a velvet mite is an arachnid it has eight legs too so does the solifuge or red roman a creature with startlingly outsized jaws to chop up its prey but neither mite nor solifuge nor this bizarre creature the whip scorpion can produce silk and that is the thread from which the spider's very life hangs like their fellow arthropods the insects spiders have an external skeleton it's almost a suit of armor to shield soft boneless insides and an external skeleton can be molded into virtually any shape imaginable a very visible difference between spiders and insects is numbers of legs and body parts insects have six not eight legs and three body parts a spider only has two and all eight legs are attached to the upper part of its hourglass figure none at all to the abdomen container for vital organs most spiders have eight eyes some six or fewer many have poor eyesight but not a jumping spider its large middle eyes occupy more space in its head than its brain does they work like a camera zoom lens focusing on fine detail while the rest spot movement with 360 degree panoramic lenses spiders have two short front limbs called pedipalps the females are adapted for feeding the males for mating proof of where the priorities of each lie spiders are hairy creatures the hairs take the place of ears nose and taste buds they can feel too like a joystick each hair moves when hit by vibrations from predator or prey spiders are so sensitive to vibrations on the web they can tell exactly what's moving where spiders are not the only silk spinners of the animal world silkworms supply an entire human industry with its raw material silk is one of the most astonishing beautiful and useful products in nature the spider makes it from the simple basics of protein and water yet not even the latest science and technology can reproduce this exquisite product manufactured in the spider's own miniature industrial complex its abdomen silk threads are produced in special glands and extruded through nozzle-like spinnerets this baboon spider is using its spinnerets to position the silk which is incredibly fine and which has still not revealed all its manufacturing secrets to science spiders weave different silks for different occasions the baboon spider is making a web to screen it while it moats a changing room to hide in at a vulnerable time of life once safely inside it rolls on its back and begins to shed its skin which cracks under the pressure of fluids pumped around the body by valves and muscles membranes above the leg joints tear all eight legs will come out at once from the old skin from the husk of the old fangs new ones appear pale and soft the new skin comes with a fresh supply of essential hairs producing a bigger new skin and shedding the old gives the spider room to grow it will molt until it's adult but a baboon spider can molt all its life and that could be 20 years after a molt that may last two hours this nocturnal spider will abandon silk screen and old skin and return to its nighttime activities and the earth burrow that its skin matches some spiders that run around by day have a natural tan their new skin would darken as it soaked up the sun and the pigments changed color the cast off skin like a ghost spider will gradually crumble to dust [Music] a spider normally immobilizes its prey with one bite from needle sharp venomous fangs [Music] then it can take its time over a meal unable to fight back most spiders catch their food in webs but there are other trapping methods a fishing spider baits fish with its own legs as it straddles the water surface if a small fish comes to investigate the spider pounces [Music] however fishing spiders don't just eat fish anything small enough to come within range is chancing it and it's hard to hide from all those spidery eyes [Music] the spider must try to keep its fragile legs away from the frog so it doesn't damage them or pull them out [Music] the spider's venom will slowly tranquilize the frog and stop it struggling so it will not be able to fight back or escape as the spider liquefies it and begins to eat it alive [Music] spiders can't chew their food or swallow it whole they eat by pumping digestive juices into their prey and sucking up the resulting soup through their ready-made drinking straws hollow fangs the process is speeded up by using mandibles to soften prey but it will still take hours to eat the frog [Music] spider venom is lethal to its prey but so far as anyone knows there have never been any human deaths from it in africa you're more likely to be struck by lightning than be killed by a spider webs are the most popular traps this one is a hermit spiders and tonight it's reeling them in without its coating of sticky droplets the beetle might trampoline right off again but the more it struggles the more it's stuck the spider has felt its vibrations and runs down to see what's landed bitten and immobilized now for silk thread to tie a parcel but it will have to speed up because there's only one thing better than a beetle two beetles a run of good luck can't always hold at least this one's going nowhere one neatly tied food parcel which the spider now cuts free ready to hoist up to its retreat it joins other insect morsels hanging there like sausages on hooks tropical tent web spiders package first bite afterwards the spider gives a skilled demonstration of the art of high speed shrink wrapping when it's finished the silk will keep the packaged insect fresh right up to its eat by date and just think this cling film is totally biodegradable when there's a flush of insects a spider can gorge because its abdomen is expandable but when times are lean it's able to slow its metabolism and fast for weeks if it has to this spider has plenty of food parcels to keep the wolf from the door and there seems no limit to the conveyor belt of silk spooling from its abdomen eyes are this spider's key to a catch it's no good taking a flying leap if you can't see exactly where you're going to land spot on and it gets it right on virtually every jump down in the flower bed a blossom may not be quite what it seems not everything yellow is part of the fixtures [Music] the fly has multiple eyes but they haven't seen the danger a motionless flower crab spider just waiting to give it a deadly hug a hug and a bite and the flies immobilized almost immediately the flower crab spider's injection of digestive juices gets to work a meal is better eaten in private under the petals away from the eyes of a spider's own predators not much fly left now just a dangling husk sucked dry but the spider's evening has only just begun there are bound to be other in-flight meals available [Music] a bee perhaps better get ready for a sudden landing [Music] the bee fights for its life but the flower crab spider has carefully maneuvered the stinging end as far away as possible [Music] hmm [Music] a walking football scarf tied to a pair of boots [Music] no a caterpillar in the world of invertebrates there are many weird and wonderful ways of moving from a to b spiders have evolved a variety of ways of getting around to suit the places they live in unusually they can only flex their leg muscles not extend them they put one foot in front of the other by pumping blood into the legs through muscles in the thorax like a piston action a grasshopper can flex its back leg muscles and make giant leaps from a stationary position but a jumping spider can rival that it leaps over 20 times its own length with incredible accuracy not that it heads into the blue without taking precautions if it sees something appetizing like a mantis it attaches a safety rope to a solid object before going for it [Music] if the meal retaliated the spider would have a safety line to free fall out of trouble and if the next try succeeded spider and prey would be held securely on the end of the line or maybe not traveling by leaps and bounds is not the way most spiders move many find just having to walk an uphill struggle but there are other ways to get around like bungee jumping spiders make bungee cords as they go when they want to halt they just pull the line sideways with a hind leg and stop producing silk and to run back up a line they eat it or climb it using tiny claws on the tips of their legs these claws and sometimes a thick brush of microscopic hairs help the spider cling to the smoothest surface or defy gravity and hang upside down as long as it grips the silk threads between middle claw and the stiff serrated hairs a spider can't fall [Music] webb silk is covered in sticky droplets spiders work their way around them and hang from the silk with those special claws instead of walking on it so they don't get caught in their own [Music] traps several hundred million years ago the hard-bodied ancestors of spiders crawled from the world's oceans they were part of the advanced guard of life on dry land and their design was so efficient it's hardly changed since then already 374 million years ago an animal called atocopus had fangs and spinnerets fossilized silk was found with it its abdomen was clearly segmented and it was probably the very first spider today's laphistious spider of southeast asia looks almost identical [Music] the spider's relatives scorpions are older still their earliest known ancestors lived 400 million years ago they've changed so little it's like looking at living fossils soft-bodied animals rarely become fossilized so there are huge gaps in the spider record but from the few that have been found it seems physically they're very like their ancient ancestors only their behavior may have become more complex their production of silk goes on unchanged and it's probably their most amazing attribute the spider's silky hallmark allows it to live almost anywhere even just below the high tide mark along rocky shorelines in the world of crabs limpets and sea anemones at high tide an inter-tidal spider stays under the waves in a watertight silk chamber fastened to something solid an empty limpet shell or in a crack in the rocks and there it stays bone dry while waves crash overhead when the waves retreat and it's safe to come out it cuts a neat exit hole and off it goes to comb the beach and find other small intertidal animals to eat rain forests are superb spider habitat they buzz and hum with insects their storehouses of spite of food dazzling spray and superfine web look like one easy to make a fatal air traffic mistake when thunder clouds gather other spiders prefer to go in out of the rain this hermit spider is about to live up to its name and shun the world but first it needs somewhere to hold up no problem for a skilled diy tent maker and guy ropes can all be made by the silt glands and hold a makeshift tent in place the sticky droplets on the silk help glue the leaf such a simple but masterly creation and it'll do the trick when the clouds open down comes the rain and in goes the hermit spider high and dry in a homemade shelter a shelter held together like nearly all spider homes by silk spider silk is incredible though finer than human hair it's stretchier than an elastic band it's the world's strongest natural fiber and so superior that genetically engineered spider silk may end up in seat belts and it's a hundred times stronger than steel strength and elasticity the product of a small animal whose engineer mathematician architect and builder a web construction team of one whose materials are so good that a single strand of its drag line silk would stretch 80 kilometers before it snapped under its own weight a spider is a builder's spirit level on legs it can weave with equal skill at any angle and as any good builder knows when you work at heights first you put up the scaffolding the spiders is made of silk thrown out until it catches and instinctively it runs out exactly the right length first it anchors the main structural support the bridge line then the radial lines the scaffolding cross pieces the structure is so light that one thread long enough to go around the world would weigh no more than an orange a spider can spin a web of a thousand lines in less than half an hour and an incredible quantity of silk may go into it orb webb spiders use around 20 meters the liquid crystal fibers of this silk make human equivalents look crude if scientists could unpick its secrets and copy it the chemical industry might be revolutionized by a new class of eco-friendly techniques and products most spiders live alone but some species prefer company this web in south africa's kwazulu natal is spider city thousands of tiny community nest spiders all share one big silken home several meters high the stone nest spider lives in a very different residence it's a safe house made of sand and bits of detritus it keeps the spider hidden but it's easy to run out for a quick bite a cellar spider's web looks thrown together any old how but this untidy jumble does its job an insect booby trap and it camouflages the spider until it moves spider and web are hard to tell apart baboon spiders keep all eight legs firmly on the ground or rather in it they live in burrows surrounded by the soft luxury of silk delicate strands run out along the surface to trap the unwary who are quickly ushered in permanently and there's even a spider that lives on water in fact it can walk on it the fishing spider has dispensed with webs it doesn't need them because water transmits the vibrations of prey just like the threads of a web the spider moves in running sure-footedly on the surface film other moth predators may be alerted but the spiders are better skater not even a passing frog will stop it getting its mouth [Music] spiders are silent creatures they have no voice boxes so instead they communicate through touch smell display and vibration and a vibration holds a world of meaning its frequency may tell these community spiders what kind of insect has flown into their ramshackle web they rush over to investigate they are small and the beetle is large but there are so many of them they'll overwhelm it by sheer force of numbers the tiny spiders talk to each other by plucking on the web and touching as they conquer this comparative goliath keen eyesight helps a jumping spider interpret signals from other jumping spiders jumping spiders talk with their legs if one spider intrudes on another's territory legs can be very communicative a jumping spidey uses them to semaphore just as a ground traffic controller uses flags to direct a taxiing plane this is a ritualized sign language that both sides have no problem understanding if the intruder ignores the signals discussions may become quite heated one of them will always back down it's the safest course of action as a threat is better than a bite spiders are not immune to each other's venom [Music] [Music] just as people have evolved distinct languages every single species of jumping spider has evolved its own unique semaphore code clear signaling is vital in courtship particularly if the female is much bigger than the male like golden orb spiders their courtship can last 15 hours so the female anchors herself firmly for the duration she weighs a thousand times more than the male who's so much smaller he must make sure she knows he's mate not meet a delicate round of negotiations begins with him plucking her web playing its strings like a lead guitar in a tune known only to golden orb spiders the vibrations he makes signal his sex species and intentions strum the right chords and his chances are good but get his notes wrong and his audience will have him bitten wrapped and eaten right there on stage after the music comes the hesitant caress but she isn't in the mood yet more strumming is needed how about this tune that did it she's calm and quiet as if entranced but now for the really dicey part the actual mating and this is where he must brave the jaws of death the male has previously used his pedipalps like eye droppers and sucked sperm into them they fit the genital opening in her abdomen like a key in a lock and only hers since each species of spider has its own uniquely shaped genitalia now he inserts his sperm with infinite care the show's over time to run as she'll snap out of it fast and may feel hungry ex-partners do get eaten however the males of many species are genetically programmed to die once they've mated having fulfilled life's main purpose to procreate spiders lay hundreds of tiny eggs and tie them up in delicate silk bundles sometimes they reinforce the bundles with vegetation or sand some females like the fishing spider keep hold of their precious bundles until the eggs hatch a female rain spider has mated and is about to lay her eggs she'll wrap them in a silk parcel and then probably in leaves for camouflage mating is a once in a lifetime experience in the world of spiders just once and a female has enough sperm for life she stores it internally and when she lays her eggs she takes out what she needs to fertilize them after she's laid and wrapped her eggs they'll take two weeks to hatch so the rain spider has her leaf bag tucked behind her its leaves are now dry and brown the same color as she is but anything that comes her way might threaten it or maybe feed her definitely not a meal since the tiger beetle squirted its way out of trouble with a foul spelling liquid and the rain spider tries to clean this off with her pedipalps perhaps her bag of eggs should be less exposed hidden from any hungry neighborhood predator the rain spider prepares to take it to higher ground and goes off to look for a better hiding place left unguarded a bundle of spider eggs would make a good praying mantis meal but their guardian won't be away long she's watched her eggs well but now the first spiderlings are hatching they look even more appetizing the rain spider mother needs to carry on guarding this is a very bold mantis the spiderlings are tiny replicas of the adults only their mouth parts venom glands digestion and spinning organs are still underdeveloped at this early stage once they've absorbed the last of the egg yolk and have developed fully they'll start to feel hungry so they must disperse or they'll begin to eat each other its first hours or days may be the riskiest part of a spider's life unlike the rain spider many mothers don't bother to protect their vulnerable spiderlings some don't even guard their egg sacs a spiderling that takes the wrong path may find it leads to a hungry adult of another species or it may have the bad luck to find an older sibling from a first egg sac is still there when it emerges from their mother's second exact some arachnids like the tailless whip scorpion keep their young with them until they're old enough to be independent it can be a ticklish business being an arachnid mother piled high on her abdomen is the safest place for a featherlight clutch until each feels it's time to leave home wolf spiderlings also cling tightly to mother's abdomen which has special hook-shaped hairs for them to grip a female cellar spider holds her egg sac in her mouth until the spiderlings crawl out and park themselves on her head they'll need to molt nearly 10 times over before they reach her adult size their first visit to the big wide world they meet termites and praying mantis the termites perhaps view the spiderlings as a threatening horde but the praying mantis is another matter it's a predator the spiderlings are now old enough to produce silk and they use it to try and neutralize the termites the mantis is out of reach but fortunately seems confused by the mass of tiny bodies the spiderlings will live at least today [Music] spiders may be the world's most numerous predators but there are many animals that prey on them [Music] being a distant relative of this venomous creature is no guarantee against fetching up in its jaws scorpions birds mammals ants lizards a spider has a long list of enemies if you can avoid venomous fangs the bit behind is a soft squishy beakful and since there are big spiders that eat tiny birds perhaps this is poetic justice the tables can be turned to on a fishing spider a narrow escape and now the spider defecates to screen itself the fish seems to have lost the trail natural to want to run but a dead giveaway dangling legs baited the wrong size fish at least that was a quick end not all are at egg laying time a female parasitic wasp seeks out fresh rain spider and she goes to considerable lengths and considerable trouble to find one and to sting and paralyze it before it can do the same to her she will also vigorously defend her spider she has the needs of her young to consider the spider is much heavier than the wasp and yet she's quite capable of dragging it up off the ground out of reach of scavenging ants the coast is clear back to her herculean task here is the spot where the spider will end her days entombed in a hole dug by the wasp awaiting a fate arguably worse than any of her own past victims the wasp will bury her alive lay a single egg on the spider's body and seal her tomb when the egg hatches the wasp lava will grow fat on its own private store of spider leaving the vital organs till last to keep it fresh as long as possible strange shapes can save a spider's life or superb camouflage like the long spinnered bark spider it also has a flat body that casts little shadow zigzags on an orb web spider's snare may confuse predators so they miss the spider sitting in the heart of its web some predators are not after the spider but its web elastic silk makes a strong and soft nest a luxury home to cocoon paradise flycatcher chicks spiders are generally misunderstood and unloved yet many are beautiful or beneficial few are dangerous to man indeed what they manufacture can be invaluable to science spider silk has entered the space race and the arms race as the model material for satellite cords and bulletproof vests even some of the most sophisticated new technology may yet be improved because of a fiber spiders perfected nearly 400 million years ago [Music] [Music] [Music] i i am [Music] thank hey

Channel: The Secrets of Nature

Views: 82,153

Rating: 4.8180485 out of 5

Keywords: orf universum, documentary, blue chip, natural history, secrets of nature, planet earth, natura, naturaleza, documentales, wildlife, grandes documentales

Id: NdQB2QNsMfw

Length: 51min 3sec (3063 seconds)

Published: Sun Oct 11 2020