BOSTON, Mass. — Tasty insects, look out: This spider is a speed demon. When it spots prey, it launches itself and its web like a slingshot. This gives it about 100 times the acceleration of a cheetah.

Fittingly, these tiny creatures are called slingshot spiders. They live in the Amazon rainforest of Peru. Their web shot makes them the fastest-moving arachnids known, says Symone Alexander.

She works at Georgia Tech in Atlanta, where she studies the physics of living things. Alexander described the speedy spiders here, March 4, at a meeting of the American Physical Society.

Slingshot spiders weave conical webs. The webs have a single strand attached to the tip of the cone. The spider reels in that strand to ramp up the tension. When it senses a potential meal, it releases the web. The spider and web then together fling forward. This ensnares the prey. “Just like that, our spider has dinner,” Alexander explains.

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She and her colleagues used portable high-speed cameras to record the spidey action. These clocked the spiders flying at up to some 4 meters (13 feet) per second. That’s close to the speed of a human jogger. “It’s a good thing… we’re not their target!” Alexander joked.

Other so-called speedy spiders seem slow by comparison. Take the Moroccan flic-flac. This spider cartwheels away from danger at speeds of only about 2 meters per second.

The slingshot spider’s maximum acceleration is more than 1,100 meters (3,600 feet) per second squared. That stat puts cheetahs to shame. Those fleet-footed cats, notes Alexander, only accelerate at up to 13 meters (42.7 feet) per second squared.