Back to Show
Deep Look
Is a Spider's Web a Part of Its Mind?
Season 7
Episode 16
Orb weaver spiders build exquisite spiral webs not only to catch insects, but to extend their senses. Once they shrink-wrap their prey with silk, the nearly blind spiders can store them for later, and read their web's strands as a kind of memory map to guide them back.
Support Provided By
3:58
Barnacles might look like jagged little rocks, but they have a surprisingly wild sex life.
4:36
Honeypot ants stuff members of their own colony until they look like tiny water balloons.
4:25
What animal sprays acid that reeks of vinegar from its rear end? A vinegaroon, of course.
4:31
The cage fungus looks and smells like decaying meat — on purpose.
5:12
Subterranean termites fly off in swarms, and then drop their wings to start new colonies.
4:59
A twig is actually just one of many disguises for the Australian walking stick insect.
4:46
They might look like harmless grasshoppers, but locusts have an appetite for destruction.
4:58
A kissing bug gorges on your blood, plus it may carry a potentially deadly parasite.
4:38
Skeleton shrimp anatomy can be confusing, with their funky assortment of body parts.
4:42
Tadpole shrimp are a special type of time-traveling crustacean called triops.
3:30
The assassin bug commits murder by stabbing. But does this perpetrator have an accomplice?
4:26
Most damselflies prefer sun, but the quirky San Francisco forktail damselfly digs the fog.