mudwerks reblogged
Title: Netsuke of a Seated Hare Artist: Minkō Date: late 18th-early 19th century Culture: Japan Medium: Wood, horn Size: H. 1 1/16 in. (2.7 cm); W. 1 7/16 in. (3.7 cm) Source: The MET
Nephila clavipes, a big tropical spider, has plenty of brain space.
Tiny spiders have brains so large that they fill up their body cavities and extend into their legs, a new study reports.
Researchers measured the central nervous systems of nine species of spiders in a range of sizes. While the smallest had smaller brains in absolute terms, relatively speaking their brains were enormous.
“The basic trend was that the smaller the spider, the relatively larger its brain is,” said William Eberhard, a biologist at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Costa Rica and an author of the study, which appears in the journal Arthropod Structure & Development.
In the smallest spiders, Dr. Eberhard and his colleagues found, the central nervous systems filled nearly 80 percent of the cephalothorax, or body cavity, including 25 percent of the legs.
“The brain tissue of the nervous tissue is metabolically expensive,” he said. “These little spiders are paying a very large price to keep these brains functioning.”
At times, that price includes a deformed body cavity bulging with brain matter, which may in turn compromise the size of the digestive system, Dr. Eberhard said....
Source: The New York Times
mudwerks reblogged
ca. 1900, “Smallest Horse in the World”, William M. Vander Weyde
via the George Eastman House Collection, William M. Vander Weyde Photographs on Flickr