Like many animals, jumping spiders participate in mating rituals that involve dancing and singing. But the spider's song is sung using vibrations created by precise, varied leg movements — and it sounds just like a roaring motor.


These recordings were made at UC Berkeley's Elias Lab. Writes Principle Investigator Damian Elias:

Jumping spiders in the genus Habronattus use complex multimodal signals during courtship displays. Spiders of the H. coecatus clade, a diverse group of 23 described species, have especially complex song and dance displays. The vibratory song of H. coecatus are complex, consisting of up to 15 elements organized in functional groupings (motifs) that change as courtship progresses. This temporal structuring of displays is analogous to a musical composition. This video compiles all the elements in an H. coecatus display collected from Missouri. "Sound" in the video are substrate-borne vibrations produced by the male spider and recorded using a laser vibrometer.


h/t Nerd Nite SF