Small spiders have huge brains
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China.org.cn, December 26, 2011
![A new study shows that tiny spiders have huge brains compared to their body sizes. [File photo]](http://images.china.cn/attachement/jpg/site1007/20111226/0014222d9850106259dd2a.jpg "A new study shows that tiny spiders have huge brains compared to their body sizes. [File photo]") |
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A new study shows that tiny spiders have huge brains compared to their body sizes. [File photo] |
A new study shows that tiny spiders have huge brains compared to their body sizes, which explains why very small spiders are just as good at spinning webs as bigger arachnids, NationalGeographic.com reported.
For the study, a team led by Bill Eberhard, a staff scientist at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, examined nine spider species from six web-weaving families.
They found that the smaller the spider, the bigger its brain relative to its body size. In some spiders, the central nervous system took up nearly 80 percent of the space in their bodies. Presumably, large brains are necessary to spin webs, a behavior thought to be more complex.
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