Page 52 - The Miracle in the Spider

A Perfect Camouflage Technique in Every Way
If you are asked what you can see in the top right-hand picture, you

will naturally say "A few ants on and under a leaf." But the thing waiting
beneath the leaf in the picture is not an ant. It is a type of jumping spider
known as Myrmarachne. The only way of telling the spider from the ants
is by the number of its legs. Because spiders have eight legs and ants six.
How is the jumping spider able to deceive the ants? Its does so not
just by resembling them in appearance, but also by mimicking their
behaviour. For example, in order to disguise the number of its legs, the

jumping spider holds up its front pair of legs to simulate the ant's waving
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antennae. In this way they resemble the ants' antennae. At this point we
have to stop and think: this means the spider is able to count. The spider