Amazing specialization. I was wondering the same thing. Cave glow worms cast a "fishing line," and this is similar-ish. I wonder if N million years ago, a couple of fishing-line-like spiders started anchoring their lines, and the ones with a more conic shape anchor may led to more success over time. And the anchor may have only worked on territorial prey. Fun stuff to imagine.

Injured Himenoptera are known to send pheromones that trigger a vicious defensive response from other members of the colony. On a typical web the companion ants would do what the ants do. Go to war and flood the place surrounding the danger until eventually killing it. The spider does not have neither the stamina, nor the venom amount to deal with that. This web is designed to extract one ant and only one while cutting the path that the ant rescuers could follow.

This is the first spider web known designed to catch only one species of prey. That alone would make the finding extraordinary. The trap can lure only green ants, and only one, and serve the food exactly were the spider wants it. Granting access to a common source of food that is everywhere, but also that is very dangerous to hunt (as much big as the spider, with powerful jaws, and much stronger).

The video shows one most interesting thing: Notice that the spider is carefully moving out of the way just a second before the ant will be launched. The spider knows in advance that its current location is about to be hit by a bungee jumping ant and acts accordingly just in time to avoid the "bullet". We can easily imagine the spider thinking 5,4,3... This means that spider brains can predict the future outcome of a complex movement of objects in the physical system of its trap.

Strength of fibers scales with crossection area, mass scales with volume.

>theses types of adaptations make it easier for the species to go extinct since its so highly specialized.

super interesting. I'm guessing because being highly dependent on a single tactic can make it difficult to adapt or course change ?