Rare Vegetarian Spider Discovered

Bagheera kiplingi really amazes me as it turns some of my preconceptions upside down - it feeds on acacia tree buds.

In a possible affront to its fierce meat-eating relatives, one jumping spider prefers to dine vegetarian, munching on specialized leaf-tips of acacia shrubs, finds a new study.

The eight-legged vegetarian, called Bagheera kiplingi, lives in Central America, and is now considered a rarity among the world's 40,000 or so spider species, most of which are strictly predators, feeding on insects and other animals. B. kiplingi is about the size of a person's pinky nail.

"This is really the first spider known to specifically 'hunt' plants; it is also the first known to go after plants as a primary food source," said study researcher Christopher Meehan of Villanova University in Pennsylvania. (Co-author Eric Olson of Brandeis University independently observed the same behaviors in another population of this spider in Costa Rica.)

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Stretching the imagination a bit, imagine if they discovered a vegetarian type of cat (or any type of previously established carnivore genus) in unexplored jungle - would it still be seen as a predator?

B. kiplingi.... really? Are you sure?



Pretty sure they are omnivores... Still it is uncharacteristic of any arachnid to be anything but carnivorous. Most spiders usually won't even eat unless it's prey is alive.

reply to post by DaMod


Yes I was thinking the same, they have a diet of 80 to 90% plant material, the rest is ant larvae ... sort of like vegetarians who also drink milk and eat eggs. This is animal protein after all, isnt it?

Very interesting, but it seems like calling a spider vegetarian might be a bit of a stretch. These may feed 'primarily' on vegetable matter, but that does not negate their status as omnivorous.

Unless prior scientist were mistaken about the creature eating insect larvae... which I suppose is possible.

how do we know it's rare if we just found it? shouldn't there be more time spent looking for more before we accept such a declaration?