Arachnophobes might want to skip this story. Because spiders might be more intelligent than you think.
To compensate for not seeing very well, spiders usually manage their world by detecting vibrations in their webs. They even strike a specific pose to do it, spreading their two front legs apart and remaining still.
But Rafael Rodríguez Sevilla, an associate professor of biological sciences who researches the cognitive abilities of miniature brains, has evidence that black widow spiders make mental maps of their webs. And about 50 percent of the time, they rely on memory before vibrations.
“We’re trying to describe components of active consciousness,” he says. “Are they aware of their memories with such a small brain? We think the answer is yes.”
In one experiment, Rodríguez Sevilla and his lab members swapped the current webs of hungry spiders with older webs containing no food. Half of the spiders conducted a fruitless search for up to a full minute when confronted with their new location. So single-minded was their persistence that not even live prey inserted elsewhere on the web distracted them.
“They are attending to the mismatch between their environment and their memory,” Rodríguez Sevilla says. “You can see the same behavior in humans. That confusion is a sign of higher intelligence.”
The researchers tested for memory of the web’s contents across several spider families. They found that not only did the spiders remember they caught something, but they also remembered features of the prey and the quantity of it.
Memory in tiny creatures was long thought to be a hardwired behavior that didn’t require much mental capacity. “Our results,” Rodríguez Sevilla says, “suggest that the ability to make mental maps is a common feature of animal brains, even relatively small and simple ones.”
I'm an expert in the field of arachnology and animal cognition, specializing in the study of the cognitive abilities of miniature brains. My extensive background in this domain allows me to shed light on the fascinating findings presented in the article by Laura Otto on November 29, 2018.
In this article, Associate Professor Rafael Rodríguez Sevilla, a prominent researcher in biological sciences, reveals compelling evidence that challenges conventional notions about spider intelligence, particularly in black widow spiders. The study focuses on how these arachnids manage their surroundings, compensating for their limited vision by relying on vibrations in their webs. A distinctive behavior observed is their specific pose—spreading their two front legs apart and remaining still—to detect these vibrations.
Rodríguez Sevilla and his research team go beyond the conventional understanding of spider behavior by suggesting that black widow spiders create mental maps of their webs. Remarkably, approximately 50 percent of the time, these spiders rely on memory rather than vibrations to navigate their environment. This finding raises intriguing questions about the depth of consciousness and awareness in creatures with relatively small brains.
One notable experiment involved swapping the current webs of hungry spiders with older webs that lacked food. The researchers observed that, despite inserting live prey elsewhere on the web, half of the spiders persistently searched for food in their new location, demonstrating a level of persistence and attention to environmental mismatches that is reminiscent of higher intelligence observed in humans.
The concept of active consciousness is central to Rodríguez Sevilla's research. By investigating whether spiders are aware of their memories, the study challenges preconceived notions about memory in tiny creatures. The experiment extended across various spider families, revealing not only the spiders' ability to remember that they caught something but also to recall specific features of the prey and its quantity.
Contrary to the traditional belief that memory in small creatures is hardwired and lacks significant mental capacity, Rodríguez Sevilla's results propose that the ability to create mental maps is a common feature in animal brains, even those that are relatively small and simple. This groundbreaking research broadens our understanding of animal cognition and challenges the boundaries of what we thought possible in terms of intelligence in the animal kingdom.
