10 Fascinating Facts About Spiders

10 Fascinating Facts About Spiders Spiders: some people love them, some people hate them. Regardless of if youre an arachnophile or an arachnophobe, youll find these 10 facts about spiders fascinating. 1. Spider Bodies Have Two Parts: A Cephalothorax and an Abdomen All spiders, from tarantulas to jumping spiders, share this common trait. The simple eyes, fangs, palps, and legs are all found on the anterior body region, called the cephalothorax. The spinnerets reside on the posterior region, called the abdomen. The unsegmented abdomen attaches to the cephalothorax by means of a narrow pedicel, giving the spider the appearance of having a waist. 2. With the Exception of One Family, All Spiders Are Venomous Spiders use venom to subdue their prey. The venom glands reside near the chelicerae, or fangs, and are connected to the fangs by ducts. When a spider bites its prey, muscles around the venom glands contract, pushing venom through the fangs and into the animal. Most spider venom paralyzes the prey. The spider family Uloboridae is the only known  exception to this rule. Its members do not possess venom glands. 3. All Spiders Are Predators Spiders hunt and capture prey. The majority feed on other insects and other invertebrates, but some of the largest spiders may prey on vertebrates such as birds. The true spiders of the order Araneae comprise the largest group of carnivorous animals on Earth. 4. Spiders Can't Digest Solid Foods Before a spider can eat its prey, it must turn the meal into a liquid form. The spider exudes digestive enzymes from its sucking stomach onto the victims body. Once the enzymes break down the tissues of the prey, it sucks up the liquefied remains, along with the digestive enzymes. The meal then passes to the spiders midgut, where nutrient absorption occurs. 5. All Spiders Produce Silk Not only can all spiders make silk, but they can do so throughout their life cycles. Spiders use silk for many purposes: to capture prey, to protect their offspring, to assist them as they move, for shelter, and to reproduce (more on that in a moment). Not all spiders use silk the same way. 6. Not All Spiders Spin Webs Most people associate spiders with webs, but some spiders dont construct webs at all. Wolf spiders, for example, stalk and overtake their prey, without the aid of a web. Jumping spiders, which have remarkably good eyesight and move quickly, have no need for webs, either. They simply pounce on their prey! 7. Male Spiders Use Modified Appendages Called Pedipalps to Mate Spiders reproduce sexually, but males use an unusual method to transfer their sperm to a mate. The male first prepares a silk bed or web, onto which he deposits sperm. He then draws the sperm into his pedipalps, a pair of appendages near his mouth, and stores the semen in a sperm duct. Once he finds a mate, he inserts his pedipalp into her genital opening and releases his sperm. 8. Males Risk Being Eaten by Their Female Mates Females are typically larger than their male counterparts. A hungry female may consume any invertebrate that comes along, including her suitors. Male spiders sometimes  use courtship rituals to identify themselves as mates and not meals. Jumping spiders, for example, perform elaborate dances from a safe distance and wait for the females approval before approaching. Male orb weavers (and other web-building species) position themselves on the outer edge of the females web, and gently pluck a thread to transmit a vibration. They wait for a sign that the female is receptive before venturing closer. 9. Spiders Use Silk to Protect Their Eggs Female spiders deposit their eggs on a bed of silk, which they prepare just after mating. Once a female produces the eggs, she covers them with more silk. Egg sacs vary greatly, depending on the type of spider. Cobweb spiders make thick, watertight egg sacs, while cellar spiders use a minimum of silk to encase their eggs. Some spiders produce silk that mimics the texture and color of the substrate on which the eggs are laid, effectively camouflaging the offspring. 10. Spiders Don't Move by Muscle Alone Spiders rely on a combination of muscle and hemolymph (blood) pressure to move their legs. Some joints in spider legs lack extensor muscles entirely. By contracting muscles in the cephalothorax, a spider can increase the hemolymph pressure in the legs, and effectively extend their legs at these joints. Jumping spiders jump using a sudden increase in hemolymph pressure that snaps the legs out and launches them into the air.

Definitions and Examples of Word Formation

Definitions and Examples of Word Formation In linguistics (particularly morphology  and lexicology), word formation refers to the ways in which new words are made on the basis of other words or morphemes. Also called derivational morphology. Word-formation can denote either a state or a process, and it can be viewed either diachronically (through different periods in history)  or synchronically  (at one particular period in time). See examples and observations below. In  The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language,  David Crystal writes about word formations:   Most English vocabulary arises by making new lexemes out of old ones - either by adding an affix to previously existing forms, altering their word class, or combining them to produce compounds. These processes of construction are of interest to grammarians as well as lexicologists. ...  but the importance of word-formation to the development of the lexicon is second to none. ... After all, almost any lexeme, whether Anglo-Saxon or foreign, can be given an affix, change its word class, or help make a compound. Alongside the Anglo-Saxon ​root in ​kingly, for example, we have the French root in royally and the Latin root in regally. There is no elitism here. The processes of affixation, conversion, and compounding are all great levelers.(David Crystal, The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language, 2nd ed. Cambridge University Press, 2003) Processes of Word-Formation Apart from the processes that attach something to a base (affixation) and processes that do not alter the base (conversion), there are processes involving the deletion of material. ... English Christian names, for example, can be shortened by deleting parts of the base word (see 11) This type of word formation is called truncation, with the term clipping also being used. (11a) Ron (-Aaron)(11a) Liz (-Elizabeth)(11a) Mike (-Michael)(11a) Trish (-Patricia)(11b) condo (-condominium)(11b) demo (-demonstration)(11b) disco (-discotheque)(11b) lab (-laboratory) Sometimes truncation and affixation can occur together, as with formations expressing intimacy or smallness, so-called diminutives: (12) Mandy (-Amanda)(12) Andy (-Andrew)(12) Charlie (-Charles)(12) Patty (-Patricia)(12) Robbie (-Roberta) We also find so-called blends, which are amalgamations of parts of different words, such as smog (-smoke/fog) or modem (modulator/demodulator). Blends based on orthography are called acronyms, which are coined by combining the initial letters of compounds or phrases into a pronounceable new word (NATO, UNESCO, etc.). Simple abbreviations like UK or USA are also quite common.(Ingo Plag, Word-Formation in English. Cambridge University Press, 2003) Academic Studies of Word-Formation - Following years of complete or partial neglect of issues concerning word formation (by which we mean primarily derivation, compounding, and conversion), the year 1960 marked a revival- some might even say a resurrection- of this important field of linguistic study. While written in completely different theoretical frameworks (structuralist vs. transformationalist), both Marchands Categories and Types of Present-Day English Word-Formation in Europe and Lees Grammar of English Nominalizations instigated systematic research in the field. As a result, a large number of seminal works emerged over the next decades, making  the scope of word-formation research broader and deeper, thus contributing to better understanding of this exciting area of human language.(Pavol Ã…Â  tekauer and Rochelle Lieber, preface to Handbook of Word-Formation. Springer, 2005)- [R]ecent voices stressing the importance of investigating word formation in the light of cognitive processes can be interpreted f rom two general perspectives. First of all, they indicate that a structural approach to the architecture of words and a cognitive view are not incompatible. On the contrary, both perspectives try to work out regularities in language. What sets them apart is the basic vision of how language is encapsulated in the mind and the ensuing choice of terminology in the description of the processes. . . . [C]ognitive linguistics concedes closely to the self-organizing nature of humans and their language, whereas generative-structuralist perspectives represent external boundaries as given in the institutionalized order of human interaction.(Alexander Onysko and Sascha Michel, Introduction: Unravelling the Cognitive in Word Formation. Cognitive Perspectives on Word Formation. Walter de Gruyter, 2010) Birth and Death Rates of Words Statistical Laws Governing Fluctuations in Word Use from Word Birth to Word Death.   Just as a new species can be born into an environment, a word can emerge in a language. Evolutionary selection laws can apply pressure on the sustainability of new words since there are limited resources (topics, books, etc.) for the use of words. Along the same lines, old words can be driven to extinction when cultural and technological factors limit the use of a word, in analogy to the environmental factors that can change the survival capacity of a living species by altering its ability to survive and reproduce. Source Petersen, Alexander M. Statistical Laws Governing Fluctuations in Word Use from Word Birth to Word Death. Scientific Reports volume 2, Joel Tenenbaum, Shlomo Havlin, et al., Scientific Reports, Nature, March 15, 2012.