Spiders have Unique Personalities, Study Finds

A new study conducted by researchers in India has found that spiders have unique personalities.

The study was based on Stegodyphus sarasinorum. There are about 21 species that belong to the genus Stegodyphus and at least three of them are known to be social. These spiders are found in Asia, African and Europe.

Scientists have known that animals of the higher evolutionary strata have personalities. But, whether lower creatures such as bugs display personality, wasn't clear until now.

Stegodyphus sarasinorum is a species of spiders that lives in colonies. In the study, researchers focused their attention on finding one personality trait - courage.

There is another species of spiders- Anelosimus studiosus- that displays personality traits such as aggressiveness.

"The main personality measure that we used in our study was termed 'boldness' and was measured on a continuous scale, meaning that individuals could be found at any point of the scale from very shy to very bold," Lena Grinsted of Aarhus University's Department of Bioscience and lead author of the study told Discovery News.

In spiders, boldness refers to the creatures' enthusiasm in rushing out of the nest to check what bug has been caught in the net rather than waiting for longer time to get out of the nest.

For the study, researchers caught 40 spiders and brought them to the lab where they tested their aggressiveness. The researchers then marked the aggressive spiders to help with identification.

Later the spiders were placed on trees near the lab, where researchers studied their movement. Researchers even conducted simulations to determine which spiders showed boldness. They found that spiders maintained their personalities (were bold) at both the stages of the study.

According to the researchers, spiders living in a social group tend to have distinctive personality and it is this trait that places them on a specific job in their colony. For example, the bold spiders tend to confront the prey while the meeker ones tend to the young spiders, reports Physorg.

The study is published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B.