Sometimes the simple geometries of The Wild stagger me.
Consider a simple (simple???) spider web. The elegance, the symmetry.
Now consider how many years of evolution it took to get it just right.
Now recognize that evolution is still happening. What we recognize as a spider’s web is what a spider’s web is at this moment in time. Who knows what they, and spiders themselves, will be in another million years.
I saw a video once of a spider thinking.
It chilled me once I understood what was happening.
A spider and some insect were in a control setting and separated by a pool of water about a foot across. The spider saw the insect. The pool was too big to leap, too deep to wade, and extended to both sides of the setting so the spider couldn’t go around it. A fan produced a light breeze from the spider’s side of the pool to the insect’s side, and a small, flat piece of cork floated on the spider’s side of the pool. Not out of the water, just on that side of the pool.
The spider went back and forth along the “shore” line a few times, always coming back to the cork.
It got on the cork, lifted its spinnerets into the breeze, sent a line over to the insect’s side, then pulled itself across on the cork.
The spider reasoned out a solution to its problem.
I don’t want to encounter human sized spiders.
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