This Spider Builds The Fastest Trap in the World

A Tiny Spider with an Incredible Trap

Most spiders catch insects by waiting for them to get tangled in their sticky web. But a spider was just recently discovered in the rainforests of northern Australia that hunts in a completely different way. Instead of patiently waiting for its prey to walk or fly into its web, this tiny spider builds a spring-powered catapult that launches ants high into the air and straight into its web.

Scientists nicknamed it the "ballista spider" after the ancient Roman weapon that launched bolts and stones at enemies, which was called a ballista.

The ballista spider is nicknamed after the Roman weapon that catapults projectiles.

Hunting One of the Forest's Toughest Insects

The ballista spider doesn't hunt just any insect. It specializes in catching only one prey: green tree ants.

Green tree ants are one of the most difficult insects for a spider to attack. They have powerful jaws, strong grips, and live in huge colonies. If one ant is attacked, it can quickly call hundreds or even thousands of other ants for help. Most spiders avoid them completely. But somehow, the ballista spider has evolved a way to catch these dangerous ants one at a time.

Green tree ants are strong, aggressive insects that many spiders avoid.

A Trap Powered by Spider Silk

Every night, the spider carefully builds its unique trap. It stretches many silk threads tightly between a leaf and a branch above it. At the bottom of the trap, it builds a tiny cone made of silk. At the top, it builds its sticky web that will catch and entangle the ant. The spider connects the cone and the web with strands of silk stretched so tightly that they store huge amounts of energy, just like a stretched rubber band.

The spider's silk trap stores energy like a stretched rubber band.

Green tree ants somehow mistake the silk cone for an enemy, and they instinctively bite it. When a green tree ant bites the silk cone, the trap is triggered instantly. The stretched silk snaps upward so quickly that it rips the ant off the leaf and launches it directly into the waiting web above. Only after the ant is safely tangled does the spider move in to eat its meal.

The spider doesn't trigger the trap itself. Instead, the ant unknowingly activates the catapult, launching itself into the waiting web.

The ant is catapulted up by the ballista spider's silk trap.

One of Nature's Fastest Catapults

To understand just how powerful the trap is, scientists recorded it using high-speed cameras to slow down the action. They discovered that the spider's silk trap launches the ant with an explosive burst of acceleration equal to about 140 times Earth's gravity (140 g).

Let's put that in human terms. One of those giant Slingshot amusement park rides that launches people high into the air can reach about 5 g.

Human slingshot rides have a force of up to 5 times the force of gravity (5 g).

Even fighter jet pilots performing intense flying maneuvers and sharp turns usually experience no more than about 9 g. The ballista spider's trap launches ants at an incredible 140 g, many times greater than the strongest forces people ever experience. The ballista spider's trap is one of the most powerful hunting mechanisms ever discovered in nature.

Fighter pilots performing intense maneuvers experience up to 9 g.

Why This Discovery Matters

This is a brand new discovery, and scientists have never seen another spider use a hunting strategy quite like this.

Nature is full of amazing engineering, and the ballista spider may be one of its greatest inventors. By studying how this tiny spider stores and releases so much energy using nothing more than silk, scientists hope to better understand natural materials, and even inspire new human technologies. Sometimes the smallest creatures have the biggest surprises. What other animal inventions are waiting in the rainforest, yet to be discovered?