Spider webs protected by chemical ants hate

SPIDER tartare would make a juicy feast for an army of ants, if only they could make it onto their webs. It seems some arachnids build anti-ant shields into their silken abodes.

Mark Elgar at the University of Melbourne, Australia, and Daiqin Li at the National University of Singapore analysed the webs of 21 batik golden web spiders (Nephila antipodiana), which are found in south-east Asia and live alongside many ant species. They detected 2-pyrrolidinone on the silk. The chemical has been found on the webs of other spiders, but its function was unclear.

Next, the team created three bridges each made of a single thread of N. antipodiana silk. Two were stripped of chemicals, while a third was left intact. Ants were lured across the bridges with a dead fly. En masse, they crossed the stripped silk, but not the natural thread (Proceedings of the Royal Society B: DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2011.2193).

Pouring the chemical on a stripped thread deterred ants from following a trail of food back over it. "It either tastes or smells really awful to them," says Elgar, who wonders if it could be used as an insecticide.

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Source: http://feeds.newscientist.com/c/749/f/10897/s/1a7639ff/l/0L0Snewscientist0N0Carticle0Cmg2122840A50B60A0A0Espider0Ewebs0Eprotected0Eby0Echemical0Eants0Ehate0Bhtml0DDCMP0FOTC0Erss0Gnsref0Fonline0Enews/story01.htm

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