This spider flings ants 30 centimeters into its trap

Researchers at Macquarie University have discovered a spider in North Queensland with an extraordinary hunting strategy. This unnamed species hunts exclusively one prey: the green tree ant, an insect so aggressive that most predators avoid it. According to their research in Current Biology, the spider builds a cone of fifteen to sixty bundled silk lines near the ground. It coats the cone with pheromone that lures worker ants to attack it. When they do, the spider retreats—and the tension in the silk releases, flinging the ant thirty centimeters directly into the spider's waiting web. Evolution has armed this spider with nature's tiniest catapult.

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