We're Being Watched! By the Crows!?

26 December 2013

Some people will tell you they never forget a face.  Crows don’t forget faces either.  You won’t remember their face, but they’ll remember yours . . . if, of course, you are a “person of interest” in their eyes.

Long before we started worrying about the intelligence community watching us and long before the intelligence community was even planning to start watching us, “someone” else was watching both them, us and . . . just about everything else.  They were crows.

A group of birds of the genus corvid, including crows and ravens -- agroup of flying eyes has been systematically watching us (and the rest of the world) since before the dawn or recorded history.

Just crows?

Yes, just those ever-present large black birds.  They can recognize your face in a crowd of humans and, then, remember your face, communicate what they've seen to each other, and even plan and conspire.  What are they planning?  What are they conspiring about?  We don’t know.  Actually, it’s all pretty weird when you think about it.

The FBI is working on a type of biometrics called facial recognition.  Biometrics, generally, is the computer recognition of human characteristics such as voice, gate and facial features.  But crows were doing when the Egyptians were building the pyramids.

The crows’ ability to recognize and remember faces remained unproven until John M. Marzluff, a wildlife biologist at the University of Washington, decided to test the crows’ facial recognition abilities.    
Why ?   
After 20 years of working with these birds, which included capturing and tagging, it seemed that particular birds were “wary” of particular scientists and tried harder to avoid capture.  He had long wondered whether the birds could identify particular researchers.  Although the attempts to evade capture were little more than a minor annoyance, he decided it was worth a test.

Marzluff performed the test on the University’s Seattle campus.  He used Halloween-type masks, which were worn by researchers when they captured, tagged and released seven crows.  The birds certainly didn’t enjoy the capture and tagging.  The question: Would the birds remember the features of the masks worn by the taggers?

Later, two groups of volunteers strolled through the campus, one group wearing the same masks worn by the taggers and another group of wearing the same type of mask, but one with different features.  Did the crows remember?  Oh, did they.  While the volunteers wearing the different masks were ignored, those wearing the taggers’ mask were, first, yelled at.  The crows squawked and “scolded” the wearers of the offensive masks with obviously hostile calls.  However, as if to dispel all doubt about their displeasure, the crows dive-bombed a few of the volunteers but, again, only those wearing the offensive masks.

Let it be known that crows are not only vocal birds, but quite aggressive.  As David Dietle put in his excellent article on the amazing abilities of these birds -- crows “hold a grudge.”  If you read Dietle’s full article you’ll realize that if you are on a crow’s bad side, . . . well . . . you may have something to worry about.

But Marzluff’s test revealed a few things no one expected.  When volunteers wore multiple types of masks and strolled through campus, in a group, the wearers of the taggers’ masks were singled out for scolding and dive-bombing by crows.  Problem: the aggressive crows were not among the original seven that had been captured and tagged.

So, how did the other crows find out about the faces of the taggers?  Well, apparently, not by imitating or joining in the attack after the original seven began the festivities.  As amazing as it sounds, it’s likely that the attackers “heard’ about the facial features of their victims from the original seven.  Crow behavior implicates an amazing system of vocal communication that has never been well researched and is not well understood.

Apparently, crow calls are extremely diverse and demonstrate clear regional variation.  As David Dietle explains it, these birds have “dialects” – something almost inseparable from language.  Some crow calls have been interpreted to mean certain things in certain contexts, but sufficient studies have never been done to determine the extent of crow language.  Therefore, it’s impossible to estimate the degree of articulate communication between and among crows

Crows have unusually large brains for their body size.  In fact, these birds have unusually large brains — period.  The size the crow brain is about the same as that of a chimpanzee.  Nathan Emery and Nicola Clayton, from the departments of animal behavior and experimental psychology at Cambridge University in England, have recently published a study in Science discussing evidence suggesting that the crow and its fellow corvids may have cognitive abilities that match those of chimpanzees and gorillas.

So, can crows not only remember your face, but describe your appearance to other crows.   Describe you in such detail that these others will recognize you on sight?  Well, there’s a high probability that this amazing suggestion is true.  By the way, when the Seattle experiment was repeated with more normal-looking masks, the birds performed just as “well.”

The reader may be thinking, “If I offend a crow, maybe I can ‘lay low’ until all the crows, alive now, are dead.”  Sorry, that plan won’t work.  In the Seattle test, subsequent generations of crows, birds that had never seen the offending masks, recognized them and attacked the wearers in the complete absence of the original seven birds that had been tagged.  I don’t know about you, but this makes me just a bit nervous . . . , and I feed wild birds regularly.

In fact, certainly crows could give any elephant a run for the money when it comes to “never forgetting.”  There are numerous documented reports of whole flocks of crows avoiding homes, locations, even communities in which even a single crow has been killed.  It’s hard to believe that literally thousands of birds, for generations, would avoid a specific location on account of single death of one of their own, but they apparently do.

In evaluating these reports, David Dietle made an interesting observation.  If you mess with a crow, thousands of crows will remember your address for generations.  In other words, as many as a few hundred thousand crows will “know where you live.”

I can imagine some readers thinking, “Yes, crows do remember.”  “But if they don’t like me, they’ll just scold me and dive at me.”  “I can deal with that.”  And you’re probably right.  However, you should know some of the things crows can do – if they want to.

Consider a certain group of crows that loved nuts, but couldn’t crack the shells themselves.  These birds took the nuts to an intersection with a traffic light.  Spreading the uncracked nuts on the road, they waited until cars ran over the nuts and cracked the shells.  However, the crows didn’t fly out after each nut as it was cracked.  They waited and watched the traffic light.  When the light displayed a signal that would stop traffic, the birds flew into the road and retrieved the nuts.  Then, took them to a safe location and ate their meal at their leisure.

Imagine what crows could do to their enemies if they really wanted to.  These birds are intelligent planners and communicators.  Also, they hold grudges and have long memories.  Oh, I forgot to add that these birds, also, display great ingenuity.  And they are very, very patient.  Nervous yet?

As I said, I feed wild birds regularly.  I used to do this out of an affection for wildlife.  But now, I look at these feedings as something more like payments of “protection money.”

About the Author

A “must read”:

David Dietle, “6 Terrifying Ways Crows Are Way Smarter Than You Think”

What Do the Birds Think?

3 October 2013 

While observing western scrub jays in the wild, UC Davis researchers were surprised to witness what appeared to be a bird funeral.  When a dead jay was spotted on the ground, another jay immediately began shouting out alarm calls to the other members of the flock.  This seemed to make sense.  If the discovery of a dead bird was interpreted as danger, the first bird “on the scene” might call out an alarm to the rest of the flock to warn them that a jay-killing predator was in the area.

However, what happened next was puzzling.  Instead of fleeing, the first bird landed beside the dead bird’s body while continuing its call.  The rest of the birds joined the calling jay with the whole flock gathering until they formed a circle around the body of the dead jay.

This seemed odd.  If a dead bird meant a predator was in the area, you’d expect the rest of the flock to retreat.  Instead, the flock gathered at the very location of the possible attack.  Stranger still, the surviving jays stopped foraging for food for the rest of the day.  The observers had to ask: Is this a funeral?  Is fasting for the remainder of the day a kind of mourning?  It sort of looked that way.

The researchers were so intrigued that they experimented by placing other objects in the area of the flock to observe the reaction.  Colored pieces of wood were ignored.  A stuffed jay was mobbed receiving the same treatment as a competitor from another flock.  More interesting was the reaction to a stuffed Great Horn Owl, the jay’s chief predator.  With the sighting of the owl, the birds made alarm calls and the flock gathered together — just as they had for the “funeral.”  However, once gathered together, the group attacked the stuffed owl, more or less, swooping down on it repeatedly.

So, perhaps the gathering wasn’t a funeral, but massing for a possible attack.  It may be that jays don’t flee or hide from predators.  Rather they locate the threat, call their numbers together, and counterattack.  But, that still leaves one question unanswered.  After the flock found the dead jay, why did they stop eating for the rest of the day?

The researchers admit that they don’t know what this behavior means.  All they can say is that “the jays see the presence of a dead bird as information to be publicly shared, just as they do the presence of a predator.”
Whether you call it animal intelligence, thought, self-awareness, or consciousness, the question is:  How do you know if an animal has “it.”

Forgive me for saying that the philosophical approach to the question seems the least enlightening.  Frankly, whenever philosophers define animal consciousness, their definition requires the animal to have an advanced degree in philosophy to make the cut.  I’m joking — but only a little.

My first encounter with the formal theory of animal intelligence came after I unexpectedly came into possession of two guinea pigs.  When I read up on the animals, I was shocked to discover that experts agreed that a guinea pig could never learn to recognize its own name.  I was surprised because my pigs, apparently, did know their own names.  At least, when I said one of their names, that particular pig’s nose would immediately poke up into the air, and I would get a direct look.  The other pig — the one I hadn’t called by name — would go about its business without any response.

A few months later, at a social gathering, I had an opportunity to speak to a credentialed “expert” on the philosophical theories of animal intelligence. When I described my pigs’ behavior and their, apparent, ability to recognize their own names, my expert laughed, condescendingly, at my “understandable,” but “naïve,” assumptions.

He explained what was “really” happening.  Each pig had developed a sort of conditioned reflex specifically to the sound of its spoken name.  Based on repeated experiences, each animal came to associate a particular sound with certain events.  When I spoke a pig’s name, that animal had become conditioned to expect me to pick it up, pet it, feed it, remove it from its pen, etc.  Of course, if my tone was harsh, the animal had become conditioned to stop whatever it was doing and put its head down — out of sight.

I was confused by this explanation because, as far as I could tell, this expert had just described “name recognition,” human or animal, to a tee.  Sensing my confusion, my expert quickly disabused me of my false notion.  In order to understand one’s name, I was told, one had a to have the conceptual ability to understand, not only abstraction but, the process of abstracting.  In other words, the animal would have to understand that the sound of a particular word was an abstract formulation intended to represent the animal, itself, as it existed within, though distinct from, its environment.

He continued with his explanation for a while.  Then, excusing myself to get refreshments, I avoided him for the rest of the evening.

Inspired by this experience, I hope the reader will forgive me if I avoid any further philosophical discussion of animal intelligence, and take a more visceral approach to the question of what the birds might be thinking.
Let’s begin with the mirror test.  If you check out a pet shop, you’ll find that small mirrors are sold as amusement devices for caged birds.  I used to think that a mirror might fool a bird into thinking it had a companion.  This may work with some birds, but not with others.

What can a mirror tell us about self-awareness?  The test is surprisingly easy.  What would you do if you passed a mirror and saw a dark smudge on your face?  You’d wipe it off.  Well, researcher Gordon G. Gallup marked the skin, hair, or feathers of an animal with a mark that couldn’t be directly seen, at least, not without looking in a mirror.

Then, the animal is observed as it observes its own reflection in a mirror.  If the animal begins grooming behavior directed at the mark — tries to remove it — this means that the animal is aware of itself.  In other words, the animal knows it’s looking at itself in the mirror and recognizes the image as its own reflection, rather than, another animal.

Chimpanzees, orangutans, pygmy chimpanzees, and gorillas, dolphins, elephants and, among birds, magpies pass this test.  Magpies were chosen for study because researchers already suspected that these birds might be self-aware.  Their suspicions were based on the magpie’s lifestyle and apparent displays of empathetic behavior, which is thought to be a precursor to self-awareness.

The mirror test has come under criticism, not because it’s not rigorous enough, but because of its anthropocentric bias: over-emphasis on vision as a criterion for self-awareness.  So, if the mirror only tests animals with a sharp eye, what about animal speech.

Researchers have listened to the speech (and sounds) of young children and infants in their cribs hoping to learn their thoughts and levels of consciousness.  This method of study is being adapted for the study of animal speech.  Some researchers propose that by passively listening to an animal’s voluntary speech, it is possible to learn about its thoughts and determine whether the animal is conscious.  These studies have tended to focus on one species of bird, the loquacious Macaw.  However, I’ve heard no word on the progress made by those scientists attempting to learn the Macaw language.

Another proposed criterion of self- awareness is suffering.  However, there is no agreement on the answers to two basic questions.  What is suffering?  — and — Does suffering demonstrate consciousness?  Until researchers can agree on the answers, there’s no “yard stick” with which to measure results.

So, research based on “suffering” provides speculative conclusions.  Some scientists believe that even plants have consciousness.  One researcher draws the line between shrimp and oysters.  Apparently, shrimp know what’s going on, but oysters are permanently out of the consciousness loop. Another researcher has gone so far as to speak of “the inner life of cockroaches.”

Using suffering as a test for consciousness is a problem because suffering is easily confused with the more universal experience of pain, which can be experienced without self-awareness.

On the other hand, the over-estimation of animal self-awareness is, perhaps, a reaction against the “official truth” of the past.  Until recently, scientific opinion confirmed that all animals were biological robots thoughtlessly moving through their daily activities.

When we think of consciousness, let’s start with the “gold standard.”  We humans haven’t lost our place at the top.  The sheer extent of human consciousness is unparalleled in the rest of the animal kingdom.  Even if some animals are “more conscious” than we thought, none can hold a candle to human beings when it comes to consciousness.  So much so, that the degree of human self-awareness is one of the primary characteristics that differentiate our species from every other species on earth.

So, when looking for consciousness in animals, we would expect other anthropoids, chimps, orangutans, or gorillas, to be the likely candidates.  But, there are, also, several bird species registering at the high end on “the consciousness meter.”  And, the self-awareness of birds is as interesting as it is unexpected.  You’d have go back almost 300 million years to find a common ancestor of both mammals and birds.  And during the last 300 million years, mammals and birds have developed very different types of brains.

The mammalian neocortex was once thought to be the neurological structure that was absolutely necessary to consciousness.  However, birds don’t have a neocortex.  So, based on our current understanding of brain structure, birds shouldn’t be conscious at all.  However, our fine feathered friends go right on demonstrating high levels of consciousness.

Researcher Irene Pepperberg has worked with captive African Gray Parrots.  One of the birds, Alex, has scientifically demonstrated the ability to associate a few human words with meaning.  These birds have also demonstrated the ability to work intelligently with abstract concepts of shape, color, and number.
According to Pepperberg and others, African Gray Parrots compare favorably in the performance of cognitive tasks with dolphins, chimpanzees and, even, human toddlers.

Of course, those who spend a lot of time with animals, or even one animal, have known for centuries that animals possess a degree of conscious self-awareness.

In 2012, at the The Francis Crick Memorial Conference, in Cambridge England, a number of scientists presented evidence that lead to The Cambridge Declaration on Consciousness confirming that “Humans are not the only conscious beings; other animals, specifically mammals and birds, are indeed conscious, too.”
Dr. Marc Bekoff commented on the Declaration in an article most appropriately titled, “Scientists Finally Conclude Nonhuman Animals Are Conscious Beings.  Didn’t we already know this?  Yes, we did.”  I particularly appreciated the article’s reemphasis of the obvious with the comment, “It’s difficult to believe that those who have shared their homes with companion animals didn’t already know this.”

I’ve heard it said that Sir Isaac Newton “discovered” gravity — complete with the story of an apple falling down out of a tree.  However, Newton didn’t discover gravity.  Everyone already knew that objects fall down and not up.  Rather, Newton discovered a reliable scientific description of the laws of gravity.
Just as everyone knew about gravity before Newton, so most of us knew animals were conscious long before the Cambridge Declaration.  However, the Declaration is a landmark moment.  It affirms that the weight of formal scientific evidence has established that certain animals are conscious.

To most of us, the discussion of animal consciousness, self-awareness, and intelligence is both interesting and entertaining.  But the Cambridge Declaration isn’t just a decorative bow on top of a package of research findings.  The Declaration has potential ethical implications regarding the treatment of animals.  Specifically, the use and treatment of animals in scientific experimentation and animal husbandry must, now, be reviewed and evaluated in light of the scientific determination that certain animals are conscious.

But, even with the results of all this research, it’s still difficult to know exactly what’s going on in an animal’s head.  Some animals take notice of their dead.  Giraffes and elephants, for example, have been observed lingering near the body of a “recently deceased close relative.”  This suggests that animals may have a mental concept of death.  They may mourn the passing of those “close to them.”  But the question remains: What do the birds think?  Do jays hold funerals for their dead?

About the Author

See also:

[12/26/13] Crows – Organic Arial Surveillance Vehicles.

Also of Interest:

SoundEagle in Debating Animal Artistry and Musicality

The Corvids – Smart Birds Go Fishing

25 November 2014    

            Intelligence was once supposed to be simple. Brain size equaled intelligence.  But, then, there wereissues.  Some animals, with smaller brains, seemed to be smarter than some animals with larger brains.  So, maybe it was the structure – the way the brain was built. So, could intelligence be found only in brains with a “neocortex?”  Human beings and apes (primates) have brains with a neocortex.  Maybe that’s what made them so smart?   

            Or maybe it wasn’t.

            It came as a surprise when the great apes got nosed out (or should I say, “beaked” out) of their position on the intelligence ladder by a family of birds, the corvids.

            Who are the corvids? 

            You know some of them as blackbirds, crows and ravens.  You know!  Those dark colored birds that, over the past few centuries, have developed a rather “dark” reputation. Often used as props in Gothic horror films and stories, in some circles, these birds are even believed to be omens of death.

            In spite of the “funeral” overtones of their reputation, the corvids themselves are thriving.  In fact, they are one of the few groups of birds on earth whose populations are increasing.  Maybe this is because they like to hang-out with another species whose populations are increasing . . .  us. 

            Corvids are more scavengers than predators, and human society provides them with abundant supplies of exotic foods.  We, also, probably provide them with entertainment because, in fact, they watch us more closely than we’ve ever watched them.  And, certainly, they remember more of what they see of us than we do of them. 

            As disturbing as it sounds, if you live in a neighborhood with a large corvid population, they know who you are.  Not just that you’re a human being.  They know and recognize you.  They, also, know where you live.   

            To explain the avalanche of evidence of the high intelligence of these birds, a new theory has been “floated.”  Intelligence isn’t about brain size or structure.  Maybe intelligence is brain to body ratio.  That is, brain size compared to body size.  With that formula, the corvid’s walnut-sized brain is bigger in relation to its body than are the brains of any of the great apes.  And maybe this new formula will make sense of it all.  Because testing corvid intelligence produced some strange results.

            Why?

            Because these birds are smarter than any of the great apes.  In fact, if your children are around 5 or 6 years old, in terms of intelligence, they’ve been edged out by the neighborhood crows.  Corvid intelligence is roughly comparable to about a 7 year old human child.  And, if you’ve ever lived with a 7 year old human child, this should make you just a little nervous.

            But before we go too much farther, we’ve left some corvids out.  All these birds aren’t the black birds with “Grim Reaper” associations.  The bright colored blue jay and two-toned magpie are also corvids.  As a matter of fact, the magpie was the first of the group to attract a lot of attention.

            Corvids live in clearly defined social groups during the period in which they raise their young.  In fact, if corvids could speak, they probably would have been the first to coin the African proverb -- “it takes a village to raise a child” because young corvids are raised, strictly, within a defined community.

            When observing one of these communities of magpies, researchers noted how aware these birds were of their fellow magpies.  This awareness is described by the term empathy.  And the corvids have a good grasp not only of their fellow birds as individuals but, also, what their fellow birds might be thinking.

 Magpie

            These birds often gather food and hide it for a later meal.  If they see another bird watching them hide their food, they don’t “let on.”  Instead, they finish the job, hide and watch the bird that was watching them.  If the bird swoops in and tries to steal their hidden meal, the corvid will attack and defend its hidden treasure.  But, if the other bird moves out of sight, the corvid will immediately swoop back in, retrieve its hidden food, and hide it elsewhere – making sure that, this time, it is unobserved. 

            But corvid intelligence goes far, far beyond this kind of behavior.  And to demonstrate (and get to the point), let’s go fishing on the Pacific island of New Caledonia!

            Russell Gray and a group from the psychology department of the University of Auckland in New Zealand were observing New Caledonean crows.  The crows probably got tired of observing this group of human beings who were observing them, and decided to squeeze in some fishing.  Unlike humans, who have to haul their tackle box around with them, the crows “rough-it” and make their equipment from scratch. 

            The crows quickly grabbed tree branches, stripped them of side branches, and formed the ends into hooks.  These birds particularly like to eat a type of grub that lives in narrow nooks and crannies in the rocks.  To get an even quicker snack some of the birds picked up leaves and stripped off the leafy part to get a long, thin probe covered with short barbs.  This was the perfect tool to use extracting grubs.

Crow Fashioning a New Tool

            And these birds aren’t lazy.  Sometimes, it’s quicker to make something from scratch than to go looking for an ideal finished product.  “Betty,” a New Caledonean crow was captured and tested by the ecology group at UK’s Oxford University.  The group’s leader, Alex Kacelnik, explained that the group discovered that the year and a half old bird could do some surprising things.    

            When a bucket of food was placed in a well, Betty was presented with straight and hooked pieces of wire to test whether she would pick the hooked wire and use it to retrieve the bucket and pull it up out of the well.  

            Sometimes, she did, but if a straight piece of wire was closest, Betty just picked it up, bent it into a hook with her beak, and retrieved the bucket from the well.  With strips of different lengths she, just as quickly, bent to strips to the correct length and, then, bent the ends into a hooks and retrieved the bucket.  Adding strips made of different, more or less pliable, material made little difference.  Betty quickly fashioned the perfect tool and retrieved the bucket.

            But where could Betty have learned all this?  Well, Jenny Holzhaider at the University Auckland wanted to find out and, so, followed some of the crows home.  And, of course, discovered the secret crow “tool school.”

            Actually, there is a kind of crow school, and it is a kind of secret.  Most corvids raise their young as part of a close-knit community.  But New Caledonian crows are less community oriented.  But what they lose in community, they gain in family.  These birds raise their young in close-knit family groups.  The adult crows welcome the presence of their children as the adults engage in all sorts of daily activities.  The young birds accompany their parents to locations in which the parents use their tools.  Not only do the young birds observe their parents making tools, but are allowed to use the tools made by their parents.  The young birds spend two years with their parents during the learning process. 

            This is certainly a school.  But is it secret?  Secret, only in the sense that the entire process takes place within the family unit.  Human artisans have long trained, and continue to train, their children and selected apprentices in particular skills.  The crows on New Caledonia seem to do the same thing.   You have to wonder if all crow families are equal in all skills.  Maybe, some particular refinements and techniques are more developed in some crow families than in others.  The crows understand their skills and, keeping their instruction in the family, carefully impart these skills to their young.

 Professorial Crow Probably Lecturing to Students about Human Intelligence

            Dr. Gavin Hunt, also of the University of Auckland, notes that the New Caledonian crow’s abilities are learned, not within a community, but through a small number of “high quality relationships.”

            Is there more? Christian Rutz, of Oxford's behavioural ecology group, believes that we are only at the beginning of learning about crows and far from answering all the questions about the intelligence of these avian fishing-birds.

Mark Grossmann of Hazelwood, Missouri & Belleville, Illinois

About the Author

The Tarantula

5 March 2015

            Let’s begin by explaining that “tarantula” is actually a common spider name applied to several otherwise unrelated branches of the spider (or arachnid) family.  So, before we start, let’s agree that, here, we’re talking about the North and South American tarantula of the family Theraphosidae.

            Let’s also begin by remembering that spiders are not insects, but animals.  These eight-legged and eight-eyed creatures are among the most conspicuous and well known animals on earth.  Their reputation has less to do with their behavior than with their appearance. 

            Only a few species of tarantulas are significantly venomous.  In fact, there is no recorded tarantula bite that's caused a human being more than a few days of pain.  Unless hunting for a meal, itself, the tarantula seems to want to avoid venomous biting if at all possible. 

            Imagine you attack and “corner” a tarantula.  Then, you reach out to grab it.  (I know!  I know.  I said imagine it!  It’s not something any sane human being would do.)   First, this large brown hairy spider would face you and rear up waving it's front two (of its eight) legs in the air.  This is supposed to chase you away.  But let’s say you continue to reach for the giant spider.

            The spider will display its fangs.  It has two big fangs and, if you had any sense, you’d turn and run away.  But, for the sake of this example, let’s pretend you don’t and continue to threaten the spider.  It will, then, fling some of the short hair from its body in your direction.  This is something like the spider equivalent of kicking sand in your face.  These small hairs can be mildly irritating, but that’s about all.

            Undaunted, you reach out to grab the tarantula.  It bites you!  But, surprisingly, it’s too early to worry about the effects of the venom because you haven’t been “venomized.”  Tarantulas can give “venomless” bites.  Such bites are used in confrontations with other animals.  Tarantulas save their venom to use on their next meal.  You are just an attacker and, in fact, probably aren’t “venom-worthy” to this tarantula. 

            Is there any way you can get a venomous bite?  Yes, but you have to not only grab the tarantula, but this large spider must also be cornered – have no path of retreat.  Surprisingly, through every step of this confrontation, the tarantula would have been likely to turn and run away if it had a clear path or retreat.  It’s not that this arachnid is a coward.  The tarantula is just spoiling for a meal, not for a fight.   

            On the other hand, the tarantula has a rather surprising group of predators that like to make it into a meal.  The tarantula’s worst enemy is a wasp – and not a particularly big wasp.  The Hemipepsis ustulata wasp has earned the name “tarantula hawk” in South America.  These flying insects sting tarantulas.  Then, the wasps lay their own eggs in the body of the dying arachnid.  The hatching wasp larvae use the body of the dead spider as a food source.

            Human beings eat tarantulas.  These spiders are considered a delicacy in Venezuela and Columbia. They are first cooked over an open fire to remove their hair.  Then, preparation is completed by baking or broiling the arachnid “to perfection.”  When eating at a restaurant featuring Venezuelan or Colombian cuisine, you might want to get the translation of any unrecognized dishes on the menu.   At least, that's what I would do.  I really can’t get used to the idea of chowing-down on roasted tarantula.

            Although most tarantulas eat insects and very small animals, the South American variety sometimes go after bigger prey.  A lot of their fearsome reputation comes from the fearsome names they’ve earned in that part of the world.  When you get the name, the “Goliath Bird-eater,” your reputation as a dangerous predator is bound to soar.  

About the Author