This Spider Wears Its Victims Like a Hat | National Geographic

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·Nov 11, 2024

This massive ant colony maintains cohesion through constant chemical communication. This signaling method facilitates the collection of food, defense of the colony, and, very creepily, collection of their dead. However, chemical signatures can be minute. This enables the Zou Darian spider to lurk and hunt amidst the ants.

If the spider is recognized as a foreign creature, the ants will kill her. They're kind of xenophobic. She spots a loner that has stopped for a bit of grooming and injects her paralytic venom. She then uses the corpse of her victim as camouflage.

The ant's scent masks her own. This, the spider—I've gotta tell you—is the worst creature of the world. Using her disguise and the scent of her prey to mislead the other ants, she makes her escape. Once at a safe distance, she sucks the juices out of her victim and returns to her den, cementing her place within my nightmares for years to come.

So, to recap: the Zou Darian spider finds an ant colony, goes inside, finds a loner, kills it, wears its skin as camouflage, and uses its scent to help mask its escape. It is a serial killer. I mean, there's no other way to say it. We probably have an FBI profile on this thing. It is a menace; it needs to be stopped. And I don't know who's brave enough to do it—it's certainly not me. [Music]

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This Spider Wears Its Victims Like a Hat | National Geographic

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