Hotter Temps Mean Bigger Spiders!
I love animals and nature, but bugs, especially big bugs, freak me out. So bad news for me! Scientists claim global warming is increasing the size of certain spiders.
The Northeastern Greenland wolf spider, or Pardosa glacialis, can grow as long as 1.6 inches, but a new study reveals over the past ten-years the exoskeletons of wolf spiders has enlarged by 2%.
Published in journal Biology Letters, researchers suggest warmer temperatures are stretching out the wolf spider’s hunting season, giving them more time to feed and fatten up. Here’s the problem with that.
If female wolf spiders, which are bigger than males, get any larger they’ll be able to produce more offspring and it’s hard to say how this will affect the local ecosystem.
Luckily, spiders are known cannibals, so that could thin out the herd. Phew!
