Madagascar begins on BBC TWO at 2000 GMT on Wednesday, February 9. "Madagascar is one of the few places left in the world where you can still seek out and film new species and new behaviour," said series producer Mary Summerill. With so few previous studies of the spiders' behaviour, the team believes this footage could be the first to reveal their unusual technique in full. "Just hiding in a shell on the ground would expose the spider to heat and ants, which are voracious predators of the desert ecosystem," said Mr Fiely. The spiders made significant effort to avoid predators, hauling shells up to 20 times their own weight for over half an hour. The filmmakers watched as this process was repeated, sometimes with further anchor threads added to stop the shells spinning in the breeze. "This is the critical anchor the spider uses, as it attaches a new thread to the shell, ascends to the branch again, and winches the shell up." "With almost flawless precision the spider descends on a single line of silk from the branch and attaches its first thread to the shell," said Mr Fiely. The footage revealed the spiders' fascinating technique, spinning silk to hoist empty snail shells up to 50cm off the ground. The spider mites affected leaves tend to have brown and yellow spots and holes on them. But in the summer, they come out in numbers to feed on the plants. They usually live in the soil of the garden throughout the winter. ![]() ![]() Find out more about Madagascar's unique wildlife Prune off the affected leaves: The spider mites feed on the leaves of your plants in the summer.
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