Sarah J. Blige

Bagheera Kiplingi - My arachnid hero

I’ve always thought spiders were pretty darn interesting creatures, but this freakishly awesome-looking arachnid from Central America just took top spot on my Cool Spiders list, thanks to its dietary choices. Turns out this particular population of Mexican jumping spider, which was named after everybody’s favorite panther from Kipling’s The Jungle Book, chooses to dine on (mostly) vegan nosh, making it the only species of spider known to man with a primarily vegetarian diet.

The  Bagheera kiplingi lives and dines on the Mexican acacia tree, avoiding his red ant neighbors and only occasionally stealing their larvae (eek! babies) when his vegan diet becomes a bit of a drag. However, scientists studying this herbivorous arachnid reported that out of 140 meals BK dined on, 136 were vegan.

If you’re not totally convinced of the Bagheera kiplingi’s kindly nature, perhaps the fact* that BK baby daddies are the only breed of spider that stick around after knocking up their female counterpart to help with baby duty will do the trick.

We should all follow (spidey) suit and adopt a mostly vegetarian diet. Just don’t steal your neighbor’s babies.

Such a loving father

*“Herbivory in a spider through exploitation of an ant-plant mutualism.” By Christopher J. Meehan, Eric J. Olson, Matthew W. Reudink, T. Kurt Kyser, and Robert L. Curry. Current Biology, Vol. 19, Issue 19, October 13, 2009.