Flies that eat spiders, on today's Moment of Science7.
Come into my parlor, said the spider to the fly. At least that's usually the way it goes. In most showdowns between
spiders and flies, the odds weigh heavily in the spider's favor. Today, however, we'll look at a few species of fly that manage to turn the tables on their eight legged foes.
When many spiders capture a fly, they don't eat it right away. Instead, they poison the fly and wrap it in silk. They leave this silk-wrapped package for later consumption, just the way you store food in your pantry instead of eating it all right there at the supermarket.
Imagine yourself as a fly passing a web full of these
wrapped-up dead flies. You might imagine you'd be frightened by the spectacle of your comrades, wrapped up like so many Hostess Twinkies. Not so for the Microphorus crassipes. This fly
species sees a...
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