A NATURAL optical illusion hides two spiders, but one is much harder to spot than the other.
The photo below shows two masked crab spiders hiding in a bunch of flowers.
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Two spiders hide inside flowers in this image Credit: Courtesy Shi-Mao Wu, Jiang-Yun Gao via Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment
Masked crabs are native to the rainforests of China and have devised a clever way to hide from predators.
Two researchers, Shi-Mao Wu and Jiang-Yun Gao, from Yunnan University, meanwhile, published a behavioral study.
They observed that male and female spiders mate to form a flower.
It has been noted that this may be the first observed example of cooperative camouflage in the wild.
In the picture, both spiders can be seen on top of each other.
It is easy to spot the male at first, but then it is much more difficult to find the paler female.
“In a tropical rain forest in Xishuangbanna (Yunnan, China), we observed one male and one female crab spider (Thomisus guangxicus; Thomisidae) in an apparent partnership, in order to jointly imitate one Hoya pandurata (Asclepiadaceae) flower.
“In this image, where a male spider crab rests on the back of a conspecific female, the male appears to be mimicking the pistil and stamens of a flower, while the female appears to be mimicking the fused corolla of that same flower,” the researchers wrote.
The male is much darker and smaller than the female, so it looks more like the middle of the flower.
This allows the female to blend in even more and appear as pale flower petals.
What do you see when you look at this photo- It says a lot about how you react to things-
“The complex color of the flower fits as a whole only when individual spiders of both sexes are present.
“This could be an example of ‘cooperation’ expanding the niche of both females and males in mimicry systems, and cooperating individuals can improve survival and predation efficiency,” the researchers added.
Both experts would like to further investigate this strange spider relationship.
“It would also be interesting to investigate the coevolution between male and female spider crabs,” they wrote.
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A male spider can be seen here on top of a female Credit: Courtesy of Shi-Mao Wu, Jiang-Yun Gao via Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment
The science behind optical illusions
This short explanation may help you untangle your brain…
- Optical illusions make a little more sense when you learn that our eyes have very little to do with what we see and that it is our brain that plays a key role in creating images and trying to protect us from potential threats around us
- Our brain is constantly trying to understand the world at the fastest pace despite the fact that the world is in 3D and the images on our retina are in 2D
- It can be very difficult for your brain to interpret everything at once, so it will often take shortcuts and give you a simplified version of what you’re seeing so you can react more quickly if the object you’re looking at looks dangerous
- When you look at an object, what you really see is the light that bounces off it and enters your eye, which is converted into electrical impulses that your brain then converts into an image.
- Our brains can distort straight lines if an object in their midst appears to be approaching because it wants to emphasize a potential threat
- Different colors, light and dark can make objects of the same size look different, or make patterned images look like they are spinning
Categories: Optical Illusion
Source: HIS Education