Male jumping spiders, known for their wicked dance moves (video), may have another trick for attracting mates: ultraviolet come-hither looks. The discovery, made by Jingjing Li from the Hubei University in China and published yesterday in Current Biology, is the first evidence that insects can detect UV-B rays.
UV-A rays can be detected by many insects, birds, fish, and mammals, but UV-B rays are more energetic than UV-A rays (which makes them perfect for giving us cancer and sunburns), and it had been assumed that no animals had the right equipment for detecting them.
