Daddy longlegs spiders shock scientists as they gobble up unusual prey like gummy bears

More like daddy frog legs.Although known for eating bugs and other invertebrates, it appears daddy longlegs are pursuing bigger game.Researchers observed these gangly arachnids chowing down on small frogs that are bigger than themselves in South America, as detailed in ribbeting research in the journal Ecology and Evolution.“Finding these animals eating frogs was a complete surprise, we didn’t expect them to be able to capture them,” study co-author Luís Fernando García, a biologist at the University of the Republic in Uruguay, told Live Science.The research team based their findings on ten reports of this French-evoking feeding behavior, which would appear to completely upend the typical predator-prey dynamic between bugs and amphibians.

These encompassed field observations across South America, research papers and submissions to iNaturalist — a citizen science platform where anyone can post wildlife pics.Naturalist guide and co-author Lizardo Proaño told Smithsonian Magazine that he initially didn’t think he was seeing “something special” while observing a harvestman devouring one of these fly-catchers.“I thought it was normal because frogs are good prey for everybody,” he said.“They don’t have any scales or hard bones.

They are like gummy bears in the forest.”He quickly learned that this behavior was quite the anomaly in scientific circles.Although the observations are nothing knew, it was unclear if these spindly-limbed critters were scavenging dead frogs or actively hunting them.Given that these pond-hoppers were still alive in many of the instances, the team deduced that it was more likely the latter.

In some cases, the frogs were up to 1.29 times bigger than their captor — an impressive feat given that these creepy crawlies don’t have venom with which to subdue their prey.Instead researchers speculated that these eight-legged invertebrates might be using their strong spiny mouthparts or front limbs, known as pedipalps, to ...