Bolas spiders are aggressive mimics.
That is, they attract their prey, exclusively night-flying male moths, by mimicking a female moth of the prey species by emitting odors that are chemically identical to certain components of her sex attractant pheromone.
When a male moth bent on sex, lured in by the false pheromone, flies close enough, the spider “lassoes” it with a sticky glob of glue at the end of a long strand of silk.
This device is really more like the bolas used by Argentine gauchos than the lasso used by cowboys.
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