Everyone knows that to tear the spiders legs for the sake of entertainment is bad. Ingacio, Escalante, entomologist of the University of California, Berkeley studying harvestmen, not mocking the poor insects, and they are not driven by malice or boredom, but a purely scientific interest.
The whole point is that the legs of these spiders don’t have to take as they fall away. Neat pinch is enough to run the internal protective system of the body, which is designed to sacrifice the leg to save the creature’s life in the wild. Scientists do not know for sure whether the drop extremities painful process, but many agree that, most likely, harvestmen do not feel pain as a protective mechanism operates automatically. It is interesting to note that only bleeds discarded leg.
On the scientific facts available
About this phenomenon and other interesting facts Escalante will speak at the event East Bay Nerd Nite, which will be held on August 28 at club 21 in Oakland, California. «Party for geeks» is regularly held in 100 cities around the world. Most of it up lectures on various topics that help to expand my horizons and learn something new about the world around us.
Research Escalante focused on Autonomous drop the tabs. and on the fact, how this affects their survival in the long run. But during Nerd Nite, he will pay more attention to debunking popular myths about the harmless creatures that you’ve probably ever met in my life in the bathroom.
Truth or fiction?
Here, for example, heard that harvestmen are the most poisonous spiders in the worldand one bite can kill you, but their fangs are too small to bite through human skin (and therefore all of us are lucky enough)? In fact, this myth is not a word of truth.
Technically, harvestmen aren’t even spiders. They became a separate detachment of 350 million years ago, like the Scorpions and mites. They are often confused with spiders-dolgonogi, because they are very similar in appearance; the only difference is that harvestmen torso like a pea, and spiders dolgonogi it consists of two parts and resembles a peanut. Also harvestmen have no venom and these fangs, but their front jaws, called chelicerae, are large enough to bite humans (but they prefer to bite only fruit).
Lost paws saved the life of
A couple of their extremities turned to the palpi, and the remaining six legs the animal uses for movement. Here harvestmen resemble insects. When they move their three legs touch the ground at any point. Their fine pacing suffers greatly from the loss of my legs, because the limb does not grows with time. But it’s a small price for survival and harvestmen have learned to pay. Individuals who are missing one, two or even three feet fairly quickly able to adapt and restore your level of mobility, just starting to walk differently.
New forms of motion more chaotic, and therefore they can even help the. to stay alive longer, since now predators becomes difficult to track them down. As they say, on the bright side.
Nature has a lot to learn
The observation of nature has helped man to improve his inventions. As soon as scientists will be able to understand the mechanisms of changes in the forms of movement of the harvestmen, they will be able to apply this knowledge in the field of robotics and prosthesis development.
