Spiders have personality, too
Who says humans are the only living organisms with personalities? Scientists have known for many years that certain animals, like cats, dogs, and chimps have distinct, developed personalities, but what about smaller organisms with brains that aren’t quite as developed? Like, say, spiders?
To find out whether spiders have their own distinct characters that help to shape their individual lifestyles, researchers in India chose a social species of spider, Stegodyphus sarasinorum, one of the few spider species that live in colonies. In order to make the investigation easier, the scientists chose to focus on only one aspect of personality: boldness. In spiders, ‘boldness’ is described as ”the tendency to rush out of the nest to see what sort of creature has become stuck in its web, rather than hanging behind to see what develops.”
When the 40 little spiders chosen as specimens were observed in their simulated environments, researches found that individual spiders varied considerably between being very bold and very shy. They also found that the bolder ones in the community were assigned tasks like dealing with captured prey, while the meeker ones usually engaged in less confrontational tasks like nurturing offspring. Since within-group variation in individual personalities seems to shape task differentiation, I personally believe that this is an evolutionary process designed to lead to increased colony efficiency and productivity. Interesting!