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Explanation: This week's brief video presents the amazing vibrating spider of India. Actually,
vibrating spiders -- also called cellar spiders and a variety of other common
names -- are very common
and found throughout most of the world. We explored this type of spider in a previous episode of EPOW, but the video this week does greater justice to this strange behavior. Why do vibrating spiders vibrate? Perhaps it is to fend off predatory attacks, or perhaps just to warn animals that get too close to its web, so as to save its web from accidental destruction. Either way, it can be viewed as a form of flash behavior, in which an animal, which is sitting still, exhibits a sudden and startling movement or noise. Flash behavior serves to startle a potential predator. Examples include the sudden wing-flapping and flushing of grouse and pheasants from their hiding place in the grass ... the sudden clicking and flying away of crickets or grasshoppers, sometimes with a flash of bright wing color ... and the sudden croaking and leaping of bullfrogs from pond shorelines into the water. And the sudden swirling dance of the amazing vibrating spider of India...
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