Spiders have hairy legs! (Part Two)

Applause IconDec 31, 2015 • 2:16 AM UTC
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pmooney3

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A spider’s leg was attached to a thin cardboard slide using a single layer of transparent packing tape. Next, the leg was imaged using a FoldScope that was equipped with a low-magnification (140x) lens, LED light module, and iPhone (5) camera. The spider’s leg was coated in at least two types of hair. First, there were numerous short hairs that covered the entire leg. This finding is consistent with previous observations that spiders contain both chemosensory and mechanosensory organs that sometimes resemble human hair (http://www.scholarpedia.org/article/A_spider’s_tactile_hairs). Second, there were less numerous but much longer hairs that often emerged from near the spider’s elbows/knees. It would be interesting to know if these two different types of hairs have two different functions. Both types of hairs can be seen in the attached images as well as in the attached video link, which was created by acquiring images at multiple focal planes and then combining them with the freely available FIJI image analysis software package (http://fiji.sc/Fiji).

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