Spiders with the biggest eyes are excellent night hunters, study finds

[NelsonG]

Every night when the sun goes down, Florida's net-casting spiders emerge, startling onlookers with record-breaking, enormous eyes. Now, a new study shows that the two giant eyes among the spiders’ eight total peepers make the key difference in helping the spiders to see better at night, and zero in on prey walking nearby.

These findings confirm that spiders in the genus Deinopis, which have the largest eyes of any spider, use their humongous peepers to survive in the wild, said study lead researcher Jay Stafstrom, a doctoral student of biological sciences at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Read more...

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