There’s a Spider That Makes Milk
It feeds its young a white, nutritious fluid secreted from its underside.
by Ed Yong
Nov 29, 2018
4 minutes
From the start, Zhanqi Chen realized that something was odd about the spiders.
He had first spotted the species, known as Toxeus magnus, in a park in Singapore, and whenever he’d peer into their silken nests, he’d usually find a centimeter-long adult female surrounded by several smaller youngsters. That was weird. Most spiders are solitary, and even cannibalistic toward their own kind. There are a few kinds of sociable spiders that live in, but shouldn’t have been one of them. It’s a jumping spider, a group generally known for being loners. And yet, there it was, apparently living in family groups, where the mothers cared for their young—another rarity among spiders.
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