Outsourced hearing in an orb-weaving spider that uses its web as an auditory sensor

• DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2122789119
• Publication Date: 2022-03-29T19:24:03Z
• Authors: Jian Zhou; Junpeng Lai; Gil Menda; Jay A. Stafstrom; Carol I. Miles; Ronald R. Hoy; Ronald N. Miles
• Keywords: 0301 basic medicine; 0303 health sciences; 03 medical and health sciences; Hearing; Predatory Behavior; Auditory Perception; Silk; Animals; Spiders; Biological Sciences; Biological Evolution

Significance The sense of hearing in all known animals relies on possessing auditory organs that are made up of cellular tissues and constrained by body sizes. We show that hearing in the orb-weaving spider is functionally outsourced to its extended phenotype, the proteinaceous self-manufactured web, and hence processes behavioral controllability. This finding opens new perspectives on animal extended cognition and hearing—the outsourcing and supersizing of auditory function in spiders. This study calls for reinvestigation of the remarkable evolutionary ecology and sensory ecology in spiders—one of the oldest land animals. The sensory modality of outsourced hearing provides a unique model for studying extended and regenerative sensing and presents new design features for inspiring novel acoustic flow detectors.