Most spiders have beastly social skills. They're aggressive, territo-rial loners that would just as soon eat a sibling as look at one. Of the 35,000-odd spider species that have been described, however, a few dozen flout tradition. These social spiders live in groups. They cooperate while hunting and building their communal homes. They even care for their own—and sometimes each other's—young, whereas typical spiders lay their eggs and creep away. Nineteenth-century biologists, including Charles Darwin when he voyaged to South America, discovered a few spider species that gathered in huge colonies. In the past 20 years, researchers have found more examples of gregarious spiders. Now, scientists are exploring the social webs that bind together these infamous individualists.
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