🕷 A newly discovered spider in Australia builds spring-loaded traps that launch ants faster than a bullet.

The ballista spider in Cape York rainforests weaves silk snares and waits. When a green tree ant bites the trigger, the trap launches them at 1,367 m/s - over 1.5x the speed of a rifle bullet.

Gram for gram, these tiny traps store more power than any known biological catapult. The spider may even coat them with pheromones that only attract its prey.

Published in Current Biology (July 2026): nationalgeographic.com/animals…

#science #nature #spiders

Watch this new spider species launch ants right into its web

The ballista spider builds sophisticated spring-loaded snares to catapult its prey. 

^{Annie Roth (National Geographic)}