Story perspectives

Australian “Ballista” Spider Hurls Ants at 15 g

6/24/2026

Summary

Spider Launches Ants

Scientists in Australia discovered a 5-mm “ballista spider” that propels green tree ants into its web.
The spider weaves a cone of 15–60 tension lines, each about 0.24 inches long and 0.09 inches wide, which ants bite to snap and fling about 30 cm.
High-speed video at 5,000 fps recorded ant acceleration exceeding 1,300 m/s², about 15 g.
Lead author Ajay Narendra said the trap releases energy thousands of times faster than muscle.

Summary

Researchers Track Spider

Researchers Ajay Narendra and postgraduate student Pranav Joshi spent ten days near Cooktown locating the spider.
The spider builds a silk-cone on leaves, branches or forest floor and deposits a pheromone that lures green-tree ant workers to bite the trap.
Taxonomist Greg Anderson of the Berghofer Queensland Institute of Medical Research assigned the still-unnamed species to genus Propostira.
Infrared cameras with high-speed video recorded the trap’s release in low light.

Summary

Researchers Exploit Silk

Engineers are eye-ing the ballista spider’s silk as a model for ultra-fast, high-energy release mechanisms.
Jonas Wolff of the University of Greifswald collected silk samples to analyze elasticity and power-density.
The researchers reported that the trap’s instantaneous power density exceeds that of any previously known silk-based biological catapult.
The study in Current Biology suggests the bio-engineered storage could inspire micro-actuators or launch systems for robotics and aerospace.

Summary

Spider Lures Ants

The ballista spider builds a spring-loaded silk snare at night, weaving 15–60 vertical tension lines into a cone over up to four hours.
Researchers say the spider adds a pheromone to the final silk layer that lures green-tree ants, whose bite triggers the snare’s launch.
Targeting these chemically defended ants lets the spider avoid massive counter-attacks, as the snare releases stored energy only when the ant bites the anchor.

1 of 4

Spider Launches Ants

Scientists in Australia discovered a 5-mm “ballista spider” that propels green tree ants into its web.
The spider weaves a cone of 15–60 tension lines, each about 0.24 inches long and 0.09 inches wide, which ants bite to snap and fling about 30 cm.
High-speed video at 5,000 fps recorded ant acceleration exceeding 1,300 m/s², about 15 g.
Lead author Ajay Narendra said the trap releases energy thousands of times faster than muscle.

1 / 4