"Most people and experts think that the Crusaders spiders are predatory animals. In fact, these spiders feed on pollen and plant that catches their network, "says Dirk Sanders of the University of Exeter.
And she adds, it is not no fallback solution in times of scarcity. It also examines the Crusaders, which can normally be found in a garden in your diet include pollen, although they were available food in the form of insects.
Dirk Sanders, along with Benjamin eggs from Berne University offers spider experiment, which was to confirm whether spiders in their diet are actually included in food of plant origin.
On the basis of the isotopic analysis of spider young subjects showed that one quarter of all forms of food intake pollen. Three quarters of the food then form caught insects.
"The proportion of plant food spider is quite high and should therefore be considered omnivores rather than carnivores," says Dirk Sanders.
Another interesting feature of the Crusaders that regularly cancels woven web and eats it, that reusing silk proteins. One hypothesis therefore was that pollen then becomes part of the food actually inadvertently.
But, as the researchers found, due to the size of grains of pollen is such a thing impossible. Spiders targeted obalovali pollen grains digestive enzymes, then they can suck. Spider digestive tract because it is adapted to receive a liquid diet.
Source: Ekolist.cz