Vegetarian Spider Lives By Its Own Rules

In a surprise discovery, scientists have discovered the first known mostly vegetarian spider in the jungle mountains of Costa Rica and Mexico. The Bagheera kiplingi was observed feasting not on flies or gnats but on the buds of the acacia plant. Science has known about the Bagheera kiplingi since the late 1800's when naturalists collected dead specimens of them. This is the first time, however, that its behavior was logged.

Um, excuse me. There isn't any gelatin in this plant bud, is there?

Christopher Meehan of University of Arizona in Tucson studied the spiders (while at Villanova), also noting that they had to constantly keep a watchful eye out for the ant species that share the acacia habitat. The ants aggressively protect the plant from intruders in exchange for food and housing, and the spiders must hop from thorn to thorn to avoid them.

"It is utterly surreal," Meehan said to National Geographic, "to see a spider use such effective hunting strategies to hunt a plant."

It is also important to note that the spider does occasionally fall off the wagon and eat ant larvae.