Armed with fangs, venom, and exquisitely acute senses, spiders are the supreme predators of the creepy-crawly world. But they’re no match for a killer bug that can outwit a spider’s powers of vigilance, new experiments show.

Giraffe assassin bugs have learned to squelch the vibrations they make as they tear through webs to reach their eight-legged prey, according to a study published in this week’s Royal Society Open Science. The bug even turns the wind to its advantage, deliberately targeting spiders when a blowing breeze will mask its approach.

“For the spider, the bug must be the bogeyman,” says study author Fernando Soley, who did the research at Australia’s Macquarie University and is now at the University of Costa Rica. “Because