More than a dozen spiders live in a second floor lab in Murray State University's biology building. MSU Assistant Professor of Biology Dr. Laura Sullivan-Beckers studies the evolution of animal mating behaviors and works primarily with wolf spiders in her laboratory - many of which she caught outside.
In the spider lab, wolf spiders were busy crawling over leaves in their petri dish homes. There were also some tarantulas in larger containers, (which she says were purchased).
According to LiveScience, unlike most spiders that catch their prey in webs, wolf spiders hunt them down using their body strength and sharp eyesight. These spiders also exhibit unique parenting habits carrying their hatched babies on their backs.
Wolf spiders live in Kentucky and almost everywhere in the world, most often in grasslands and meadows, but largely anywhere they can find insects to eat.
Beckers' early studies began with foreign languages and later bird languages. She describes her interest in spiders as a ‘long tangled web.’
“I focus on spiders because their really easy to keep in the lab and they’re smart and they have interesting behaviors.”
Beckers’ has a YouTube channel showing wolf spiders engaging in human-like activities such as wrestling and dancing.
Many Americans have a fear of spiders, or arachnophobia. Beckers encourages those who have a common spider fear to watch the arachnids closely.
“I think the closer you look at them the more interesting they become and I think things that are inherently interesting are less likely to be terrifying.”
While wolf spiders can bite, according to the University of Kentucky Critter Files, their bites are rare and no more dangerous or painful than a bee sting.
Male wolf spiders actually have the most to fear. Beckers says males run the risk of being eaten by their mate and have developed sophisticated behavior to prevent this.
“These males that are so dependent on signaling to attract a female and they’re under great evolutionary pressure to not be killed by the female. I think that evolutionary pressure has pushed them to develop a higher cognitive ability than other animals have.”
