Afraid of spiders? We have some disturbing news for you.
Contrary to previous assumptions, a new study conducted at Cornell University has concluded jumping spiders can actually hear. As the video above points out, many believed that because arachnids did not have eardrums, they were deaf to most sound vibrations. Previous research has confirmed jumping spiders could sense sounds produced at an extremely close range, this new study revealed they can actually hear at distances of at least 10 feet away.
This creepy fact was discovered by accident.
Researchers implanted a jumping spider with electrodes to record how the spider’s brain processed visual signals. The team utilized technology that allowed them to hear when the spider’s neurons began firing. Researchers later realized that after a sound was produced by a voice or a moving chair, some of the neurons “talked back.”
“That was really, pretty remarkable, because the received wisdom, at that point, was that spiders can’t hear sounds,” Ronal Hoy, professor of neurobiology and behavior, said in a video posted on Slate.
The team then conducted a behavioral experiment, in which they observed a spider that was exposed to low-frequency tones, like that of a flying predatory wasp. It was then that they concluded spiders hear not with ears, but with the hairs on their legs, also known as trichobothria hairs.
“By putting electrodes in the brain [and] using the brain as an essay for auditory sensitivity, instead of behavior,” Hoy explains, “we found that, indeed, spiders can hear sounds at a distance—something they weren’t supposed to be able to do.”
