Wolf spiders have multiple eyes that they put to good use. In this case, they use their lateral eyes to calculate distance. Find out how they do it below!

The tarantula wolf spider species Lycosa tarantula ambushes its prey and lives in burrows around 20 cm deep topped by a structure, a kind of turret which the spider build from twigs, leaves and small stones, fastened with the spider's silk. From the turret, the spider surprises its prey and runs to pursue it, subsequently returning to the burrow from distances between 30 and 40 cm.

In 1999, a research team from the Autonomous University of Madrid discovered that these animals used polarised light from the sky to know their position with respect to their nest.

“To calculate the distance it has travelled, the animal needs an odometer that registers the route, its location with respect to the finish point, which would be the burrow, and a ‘compass' to track the direction of travel,” according to Joaquin Ortega Escobar, lead author of a paper published in the Journal of Experimental Biologyon the function of each eye in these processes.

“These eyes look at the substrate. Seeing as they point downwards, it seems logical to think they would have a role in measuring the distance travelled. In the experiment, we covered these eyes with a water-soluble paint and observed that instead of travelling 30 cm from the nest, which is the distance we initially set, they stopped 8.5 centimetres before they reached their objective,” explains the researcher.

This explains that with those eyes covered and the other six active, they have problems determining distance.

Incredible! If only humans had this instinctual ability. However, we might look silly with multiple eyes. This proves that these spiders have survived through the years for good reason! They are the ultimate survivalists.

For more information about Wolf spiders, check out Science Daily.