Someone thinks this is funny...
The Hawaiian Happy-Face Spider (Theridion grallator) is a highly
polymorphic species, producing a multitude of patterns on its abdomen,
many which uncannily resemble the "yellow smiley-face" we all know from
our youth. What's this all about? The prevalent theory is that the high
likelihood of a pattern variant will help stop pattern recognition from
predators, in
this case forest birds. But
why the smiley-faces? Less than one-half of the spiders of this species
have a smiley-face variant anyways, the spiders are incredibly small
and not a worthy meal to most predators, and they hide under leaves
during the day when any potential predators would be hunting. Scientists
are hard-pressed to find an adaptive reason for the smiley-faces and
are mostly left with the impression that nature just told a really good
joke.
There are many impressive photos of this species on the internet. Spend some time laughing...
A scientist's anecdote: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/
Someone thinks this is funny...
The Hawaiian Happy-Face Spider (Theridion grallator) is a highly polymorphic species, producing a multitude of patterns on its abdomen, many which uncannily resemble the "yellow smiley-face" we all know from our youth. What's this all about? The prevalent theory is that the high likelihood of a pattern variant will help stop pattern recognition from predators, in
The Hawaiian Happy-Face Spider (Theridion grallator) is a highly polymorphic species, producing a multitude of patterns on its abdomen, many which uncannily resemble the "yellow smiley-face" we all know from our youth. What's this all about? The prevalent theory is that the high likelihood of a pattern variant will help stop pattern recognition from predators, in
this case forest birds. But
why the smiley-faces? Less than one-half of the spiders of this species
have a smiley-face variant anyways, the spiders are incredibly small
and not a worthy meal to most predators, and they hide under leaves
during the day when any potential predators would be hunting. Scientists
are hard-pressed to find an adaptive reason for the smiley-faces and
are mostly left with the impression that nature just told a really good
joke.
There are many impressive photos of this species on the internet. Spend some time laughing...
A scientist's anecdote: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/
There are many impressive photos of this species on the internet. Spend some time laughing...
A scientist's anecdote: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/
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