🕸️🕷️🐭 Damn, What A Catch 🐭🕷️🕸️

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This is a video I stumbled upon this morning and it's one of those things I just have to share.

Warning alert, not recommended for peeps with arachnophobia:

The video was captured by zoologist Dawn Sturgess from the University of Galway, and records the final gruesome moments of a mouse like animal caught in the web of a noble false widow (Steatoda nobilis). The incident took place in his home in the city of Chichester, in southern England.

The poor fella was still alive and struggling to escape but to no avail. The researcher didn't intervene (what a cold hearted bastard 😂) but he did later examined the left overs of the creature which revealed to be a pygmy shrew (Sorex minutus).

He even published a paper underlying the importance of the incident:

The importance and novelty of this report are: (1) this is the third documented case of S. nobilis preying on a vertebrate in five years, suggesting that small vertebrates are likely to be a more frequent component of their diet than previously thought; (2) this is the first case of a Theridiidae spider preying on a shrew in Britain; and (3) this is the first case of predation on shrews by the genus Steatoda globally. Overall, S. nobilis fits the profile of a habitual vertebrate-eating spider.

That's one bad ass spider if you ask me. According to the numbers given by the paper, the shrew is was about 3 times bigger and about ten times heavier.

Damn nature, you scare 😆😂

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You received an upvote of 84% from Precious the Silver Mermaid!

Please remember to contribute great content to the #SilverGoldStackers tag to create another Precious Gem.

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This is one amazing spider. Less potent venom than a black widow, still has enough venom to sometimes require medical treatment (humans) from a bite. They out-compete native spider species and are replacing them. Fascinating article with more crazy info, but here's the best bit I think:

false widows set silk strings loaded like springs attached to surfaces. When a prey brushes against these threads, it triggers the booby trap and the animal is lifted off the ground. The spider can then release other threads and hoist the prey with exceptional ease using its silk threads like a pulley system.

!!!!

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It's like a cartoon, only the "bad" guys booby trap actually works

!pimp

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The incident took place in his home

Oh, so nice to share the house WITH A FUCKING MOUSE EATING SPIDER!!! :)

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The spider is pretty amazing, but I am not surprised a scientists just watched. They do a lot of stuff for science.

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The spider prolly just stocked up for winter😂😂😂

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That was cool! That false widow must have some potent venom to slow down that shrew! That's pretty amazing, I've never seen a spider take on something that much bigger and win!
!BBH
!DOOK
!PIZZA

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