Post #14275

Haymaker Rabbit: Why does a spider need a dog's head on its back? Here is a dog running. Well, let her continue jumping on her eight legs, let’s not disturb her. In the end, our task is not to torment the poor arachnid dog, but to find out who he is, why he grew a dog’s head on himself and why he is called the haymaker-rabbit. The answer to the last question is the simplest: the discoverer, apparently, forgot his glasses at home, and without them you cannot see this long-legged booger the size of a fingernail. So she became a rabbit, not a dog. And yes, despite its terrifying appearance, this dog does not bite and cannot hurt you in any way. It has no poisonous glands, and its jaws are not capable of biting through human skin. In the end, it is just a haymaker, sucking out small insects as it goes. So the job of the dog's head on its back is not to bark and bite people. Its task is to deceive the vision of small predators, forcing them to mistake the harvester for a larger animal. At least, that’s what the discoverer of the species thought, and that’s what his followers think. This pattern on the back performs the function of mimicry - it helps scare away predators. When the harvestman feels threatened, he raises the back of his body, and the pattern becomes similar to the muzzle of a larger animal with eyes. This may frighten or confuse potential predators such as birds or lizards. This strategy is called eye mimicry, a common defense mechanism in the world of insects and arachnids. Predators instinctively avoid what may be a larger or more dangerous animal looking at them. But not everyone agrees with this. Other spider scientists are sure that back-snout spiders simply find each other attractive! They believe that the dog/rabbit head on the back evolved as a sign of sexual selection. With its help, harvestmen distinguish representatives of their species from others and determine which of them is most worthy of mating. We do not know which of the points of view is correct, just as practically nothing is known about the way of life of the haymaker. After all, the baby lives in the remote corners of Ecuador and is in no hurry to show itself to scientists. And try to find them, they are so small! Author: Yaroslav Ilyin 🏀 Hit the hoop and get an NFT gift — https://t.me/BasketbolX_bot