Do spiders dream? A new study suggests they do.
Jumping spiders rapidly move their eyes and twitch during rest, suggesting they have visual dreams, never before observed in arachnids.
Research “in the field” typically means a journey to the remote Brazilian Amazon for Daniela Rößler, an ecologist the University of Konstanz. But during the coronavirus lockdowns of 2020, the best she could do was a patch of scrubby grass near her home in Trier, Germany.
Rößler (pronounced RUES-slur) quickly became enchanted by the field’s tiny jumping spiders. After nightfall, some jumping spiders, about the size of her pinky fingernail, retired to little silken pouches called “retreats.” She found others immobile, dangling upside-down from a single strand of silk with legs neatly curled—and occasionally moving.
“The way they twitched just made me think of dogs and cats dreaming,” Rößler says.
It wasn’t long before Rößler set up a nursery for baby
