Abscondita terminalis
CC BY-NC 4.0.
Today comes news that may help cheer up those creationists who haven't managed to avoid all the unwelcome news for creationism that science keeps on producing. It's news of how, in a breathtaking display of brilliant nastiness, an orb web spider appears to have been designed to use captured fireflies to lure more fireflies to their death by manipulating the flashing light signals they display.
Mind you, this will make it harder for creationists to argue that their putative designer is one and the same god as the omnibenevolent creator god of the Bible and Qur'an. Along with the evidence of parasites, and especially parasites that turn their victims into zombies by taking control of their bodies, in some cases even after death, this news reinforces the impression of a hate-filled malevolent creator devising ever-more ingenious ways to kill its creation.
The spider/firefly news come from a team of researchers led by Xinhua Fu, from Huazhong Agricultural University, China. They found that male fireflies, which normally flash two lights in response to the female’s single flash, adopt the female signalling strategy when caught in the web of an orb web spider, Araneus ventricosus. What is not clear without further research is whether this is the result of being bitten by the spider or of simply being caught, but one way or another, it results in more male fireflies being lured to the spider's web.
This finding has just been published in the Cell Press journal Current Biology. It was also explained in information made available ahead of publication and reported in Science Daily:
What information do you have on the species of firefly, Abscondita terminalis, and how they use their 'lanterns' in courtship and mating? Abscondita terminalis is a species of firefly that belongs to the family Lampyridae, which is known for bioluminescence— the ability to produce light. This species, like many other fireflies, uses its bioluminescent organs, often referred to as "lanterns," for communication, particularly in the context of courtship and mating.
Bioluminescence in Abscondita terminalis
The bioluminescence in fireflies is a result of a chemical reaction involving luciferin, luciferase (an enzyme), oxygen, and ATP (adenosine triphosphate). This reaction takes place in specialized cells in the firefly's abdomen, which are grouped into structures known as photic organs or lanterns.
Use of Lanterns in Courtship
In Abscondita terminalis, as in other firefly species, the lanterns play a crucial role in courtship. The males typically use their lanterns to emit specific light patterns or flashes as a part of their mating display. These light patterns are species-specific and are crucial in helping individuals recognize and attract potential mates of the same species.
Flash Patterns and Mating Signals
- Species-Specific Signals: The flash pattern of Abscondita terminalis is unique to the species. It involves specific timing, duration, and intensity of the flashes. The females of the species recognize these patterns and respond accordingly.
- Female Response: If a female is interested in a particular male's flash pattern, she will respond with her own light signal. This response is typically delayed slightly after the male's flash. The male can then use this response to locate the female and approach her for mating.
Importance in Sexual Selection
The lanterns and the bioluminescent signals they produce are essential in sexual selection. Males with more attractive or precisely timed flashes are more likely to attract females, giving them a reproductive advantage. The light displays also help in species isolation, ensuring that individuals mate with others of the same species, which is crucial for maintaining species integrity.
Ecological and Behavioral Aspects
- Environmental Influence: The effectiveness of the light signals can be influenced by environmental factors such as ambient light, vegetation, and the presence of other species. For instance, in areas with high light pollution, the natural bioluminescent signals might be less visible, potentially affecting mating success.
- Predation Risk: While the light signals are crucial for mating, they can also make fireflies vulnerable to predators. However, some species, including Abscondita terminalis, may have evolved certain strategies to mitigate this risk, such as timing their flashes when predators are less active.
In summary, Abscondita terminalis uses its lanterns primarily for courtship, with males emitting specific light patterns to attract females. The bioluminescent communication is crucial for successful mating and has evolved to be highly species-specific, playing a key role in the reproductive success and survival of the species.
Spider exploits firefly's flashing signals to lure more prey
Fireflies rely on flashing signals to communicate to other fireflies using light-emitting lanterns on their abdomens. In fireflies of the species Abscondita terminalis, males make multi-pulse flashes with two lanterns to attract females, while females make single-pulse flashes with their one lantern to attract males. Now researchers reporting in the journal Current Biology on August 19 have evidence that an orb-weaving spider (Araneus ventricosus) manipulates the flashing signals of male fireflies ensnared in its web such that they mimic the typical flashes of a female firefly, thereby luring other males to serve as their next meal.
The discovery came after the first author of the new study, Xinhua Fu, from Huazhong Agricultural University, China, noticed several male fireflies ensnared in the webs of orb-weaving spiders while in the field. Strangely, he rarely, if ever, saw a female firefly in a web. Subsequent trips also revealed a similarly skewed pattern. This led Fu to suspect that the spiders might be attracting males to their webs by somehow manipulating their flashing behavior. To test this hypothesis, behavioral ecologists Daiqin Li and Shichang Zhang from Hubei University, along with Fu, conducted field experiments that allowed them to observe both the spider's behavior and the fireflies' signals. Their studies showed that the spider's web more often captured male fireflies when the spider was present in comparison to when the spider was absent from the web.Drawing from extensive field observations, we propose that Araneus ventricosus practices deceptive interspecific communication by first ensnaring firefly males in its web and then predisposing the entrapped male fireflies to broadcast bioluminescent signals that deviate from female-attracting signals typically made by A. terminalis males and instead mimic the male-attracting signals typically made by females. The outcome is that the entrapped male fireflies broadcast false signals that lure more male fireflies into the web.
Xinhua Fu, et al.
With further analysis, they found that the signals made by male fireflies in webs with spiders looked a lot more like the signals of free females. More specifically, the ensnared males used single-pulse signals using only one of their lanterns, not both. These ensnared male fireflies rarely lured other males when they were alone in the web.
The findings suggested that the males weren't altering their flashes as a distress signal. The researchers propose that the spiders alter the firefly's signal.
While the eyes of orb-web spiders typically support limited spatial acuity, they rely more on temporal acuity rather than spatial acuity for discriminating flash signals. Upon detecting the bioluminescent signals of ensnared male fireflies, the spider deploys a specialized prey-handling procedure involving repeated wrap-bite attacks.
Daiqin Li, corresponding author
State Key Laboratory of Biocatalysis and Enzyme Engineering and Center for Behavioral Ecology and Evolution
School of Life Sciences
Hubei University, Wuhan, China.
The findings show that animals can use indirect yet dynamic signaling to target an exceptionally specific category of prey in nature. The researchers further suggest there may be many more undescribed examples in nature yet to be found in which predators may use mimicry to manipulate the behavior of their prey, based on communicative signals that may include sound, pheromones, or other means. They note that more study is needed to find out if the spider's venom or the bite itself leads to changes in the ensnared males' flashing pattern.
SummaryOf course, there are worse examples of the sheer inventive malevolence of creationism's divine creator, if you believe that superstition, but this runs them close for its inventive nastiness. But for reasons which can only be guessed at, and probably not dissociated from the fact that creationism is a far-right, anti-science political cult dressed in a cloak of piety, creationist cult leaders would prefer us to ascribe their putative designer god to these examples of unnecessary suffering in nature, rather than have people accept that it is the result of an amoral, mindless, natural process with no gods, good, bad or indifferent involved.
Predators often search for prey while moving through the environment, but there are important exceptions, including the way sedentary predators sometimes rely on signals for drawing prey to within striking distance1,2. Some spiders, for instance, leave the remnants of previously-captured prey in their webs where they function as static lures that effectively attract a diverse array of additional prey3,4,5,6. However, important questions remain concerning how specific the targeted prey may be and how dynamic, instead of static, signalling might be. With these questions as our rationale, we initiated research on Araneus ventricosus (L. Koch, 1878), an orb-weaving spider, as the predator and the firefly Abscondita terminalis males as the prey (Figure 1A–C). Using two lanterns situated on their abdomen (Figure 1D,F), A. terminalis males make female-attracting multi-pulse flash trains (Figure 1J), whereas sedentary females attract males by making single-pulse signals (Figure 1C,K) with a single lantern (Figure 1E,G). Drawing from extensive field observations, we propose that A. ventricosus practices deceptive interspecific communication by first ensnaring firefly males in its web and then predisposing the entrapped male fireflies to broadcast bioluminescent signals that deviate from female-attracting signals typically made by A. terminalis males and instead mimic the male-attracting signals typically made by females. The outcome is that the entrapped male fireflies broadcast false signals that lure more male fireflies into the web.
Fu, Xinhua; Yu, Long; Zhou, Wei; Lei, Chaoliang; Jackson, Robert R.; Kuntner, Matjaž; Huang, Qiuying; Zhang, Shichang; Li, Daiqin
Spiders manipulate and exploit bioluminescent signals of fireflies Current Biology; 34(16) R768-R769, DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2024.07.011
© 2024 Cell Press.
Reprinted under the terms of s60 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
The Malevolent Designer: Why Nature's God is Not Good
This book presents the reader with multiple examples of why, even if we accept Creationism's putative intelligent designer, any such entity can only be regarded as malevolent, designing ever-more ingenious ways to make life difficult for living things, including humans, for no other reason than the sheer pleasure of doing so. This putative creator has also given other creatures much better things like immune systems, eyesight and ability to regenerate limbs that it could have given to all its creation, including humans, but chose not to. This book will leave creationists with the dilemma of explaining why evolution by natural selection is the only plausible explanation for so many nasty little parasites that doesn't leave their creator looking like an ingenious, sadistic, misanthropic, malevolence finding ever more ways to increase pain and suffering in the world, and not the omnibenevolent, maximally good god that Creationists of all Abrahamic religions believe created everything. As with a previous book by this author, "The Unintelligent Designer: Refuting the Intelligent Design Hoax", this book comprehensively refutes any notion of intelligent design by anything resembling a loving, intelligent and maximally good god. Such evil could not exist in a universe created by such a god. Evil exists, therefore a maximally good, all-knowing, all-loving god does not.
Illustrated by Catherine Webber-Hounslow.
Available in Hardcover, Paperback or ebook for Kindle
Illustrated by Catherine Webber-Hounslow.
The Unintelligent Designer: Refuting The Intelligent Design Hoax
Intelligent design is not a problem for science; rather science is a problem for intelligent design. This book shows why. It exposes the fallacy of ID by showing that, when examined in detail, biological systems are anything but intelligently designed. They show no signs of a plan and are quite ludicrously complex for whatever can be described as a purpose. The Intelligent Design movement relies on almost total ignorance of biological science and seemingly limitless credulity in its target marks. Its only real appeal appears to be to those who find science too difficult or too much trouble to learn yet want their opinions to be regarded as at least as important as those of scientists and experts in their fields.
Available in Hardcover, Paperback or ebook for Kindle
Fireflies or Lightning Bugs are a symbol of summer. The ability to produce light or bioluminescence is a wonder.
ReplyDeleteThis is the first time I have learned of a spider that catches fireflies. Yes it has a malevolent streak to it. Nature is ruthless and one big killing machine.
The Bolas Spider and the Ogre faced spider or the Net Casting spider also uses sinister means to attract and ensnare their insect prey. Trapdoor spiders hide beneath the soil and pounce on their insect prey that crawl over the trapdoor. There are other spiders that use other techniques to ensnare their prey.
Creationists continue to believe the creator is an omnibenevolent being. Common sense and logic tells us it couldn't be. It's not even close to being all good. It's far from being all good. It's evil outweighs it's goodness.