Scientists reveal the inner workings, and importance, of a spider's heart

Scientists at Edinburgh University have revealed for the first time in detail how a spider's heart beats. They used complex MRI scans to show how the blood flowed through a tarantula’s heart and the results suggest that a spider’s heart is far more complex than previously thought.

The images have given a greater understanding of the workings of a spider’s heart. Spiders - like humans – have more centralized organs than other invertebrates suggesting that they have evolved in a unique way. This research will help scientists understand how the species evolved differently from other animals.

Gavin Merrifield, from the University of Edinburgh’s Department of Medical Physics, said: “These specialized MRI scans have given us in-depth images to provide a much better insight into how a spider’s heart works. Further scans will help us gain new evolutionary information and identify not only the similarities that we share with spiders, but also how and when they acquired them independent of ourselves.”

The team now want to progress to the evolution of a spiders brain. By tracking the expression of chemicals in the brain they will be able to study how a spiders react to different environmental conditions.

The research, carried out in collaboration with the University of Glasgow, was presented at the Society for Experimental Biology conference on Friday, 1 July.