Despite its diminutive size, the male golden orb-weaving spider confronts an enormous struggle when it comes to finding a suitable partner. Although he is much smaller than the enormous female spider, he must tread carefully in order to avoid being eaten by the cannibalistic spider if he makes even the slightest mistake on her web. As a result, even human analysts would struggle to solve this optimization problem, which is compounded by his competitiveness with other males on the web. These little spiders, on the other hand, do not have what we would consider a brain at all. How do they do it, then? For more than a decade, Alex Jordan and his colleagues at the Max Planck Institute for Animal Behaviour have been pondering this subject. Now, thanks to a collaboration with Weizmann Institute of Science experts, they are closer to a solution.”
Animal magnetism, or, to be more precise, the effective physical forces experienced by males and females on the elastic surface of the spider web, appears to hold the key to the problem. As co-senior author and lab director at the Max Planck Institute for Animal Behaviour, Jordan states, “Our initial concept was to explore the idea that these spiders moving on the web behave like electrons orbiting a nucleus, or planets orbiting a star,” A study program was born from this original notion, leading the two teams to develop a physical model and conduct trials in the rainforest of Panama.
A suitable notion was developed even though the exact mechanics differed at the atomic and cosmic levels. According to Jordan, “Imagine electrons orbiting a nucleus, or a big star in space, so large that it generates its own gravitational field, pulling in anything around it—the giant, cannibalistic female can be thought of in the same way. Our brave males are miniature planets, satellites, or comets that come into close proximity to this attractive attraction.” Make sure you do not get caught up with her attractiveness if you approach her quickly or at the improper position. The world will be vaporized in a massive cosmic collision. In the case of an adventurous guy, a wrong approach can lead to fatal attraction and the possibility of becoming prey.
Sylvia Garza, a co-author of the study, spent months in Panama as a Master’s student recording the behavior of male and female spiders, then using machine-learning approaches to track their every movement. “Working in the rainforests of Panama, I’ve seen over-zealous males fall victim to the cannibalistic females many times, especially when they take the wrong path, or approach the female too fast,” she says.
Males, like planets, have their own gravitational pull, and they begin by approaching the perceived adversary.. The males, on the other hand, begin to reject each other as they approach each other, much like electrons surrounding a nucleus.
An Israeli physicist and research co-author, Amir Haluts, explains that the males’ movements “The motion of these males resembles interactions between particles that attract or repel one another depending on the distance between them,” “We use models to map the effective physical forces that males experience, allowing us to explain their motion on the web, as well as contest dynamics of males of different sizes.” adds co-senior author Nir Gov, also from the Weizmann. As the men travel in circles around one another, they will finally get too near and start fighting openly. Males utilize vibrations to communicate, but this can also warn females to their location and lead to a lethal attack. All of this takes place on the web’s surface.
There is no need for high intelligence or a thorough comprehension of the game to make the seemingly complex judgments that males make when balancing risk and reward, life and death. By monitoring web vibrations and responding to the physical forces of attraction and repulsion, just like actual particles, we can achieve the same outcomes. “Early on, I was perplexed by our first results, which showed that these males could solve these complex tasks apparently without the required cognitive machinery,” says Jordan. “I jokingly compared these males to electrons around a female ‘nucleus,’ as Nir put it. As a result, we coined the moniker “Atomic Spiders,” which may or may not be accurate.”
