This is the ‘bone chilling’ moment a colony of newborn African spiders turn to hunt their own mothers.
The footage was captured for David Attenborough‘s new series Parenthood.
In the never before seen behaviour, a pack of African social spiders are shown hunting in packs and responding to the vibrations of their prey as they struggle in the webs.
The spiders move in unison, starting and stopping at the same time, freezing together in a sinister game of musical statues.
Even more disturbing, after displaying their hunting skills on their usual prey of insects, the 1,000 strong colony then turns on their own mothers and eat them alive.
Sir David was both ‘delighted and horrified’ by the groundbreaking footage when he narrated it, series producer and director Jeff Wilson told The Guardian.
‘I never heard Sir David deliver a sequence as good as that … it sort of brings a lump to your throat … he’s the master at deliver,’ Wilson said.
The terrifying footage is accompanied with eerie music by Mulan and Ted Lasso composer Tom Howe.
In the terrifying video, the baby spiders turn on their own mothers and eat them alive
The mother spiders and her sisters are all eaten by their children hunting in packs
Sir David Attenborough, 99, was both ‘delighted and horrified’ by the groundbreaking footage
The female spiders will take care of their young from birth until they are eventually consumed by them
Wilson said the footage is among the best he has worked on in 30 years and is likely to chill parents ‘to the bone’.
He joked: ‘There will not be a parent of the land who won’t turn up to school pickup without snacks ever again.’
Scientists believe the ageing spiders deliberately mimic their struggling prey, making vibrations to attract their young spiders to provide the ultimate sacrifice to ensure the survival of their offspring.
The video has been compared to another breakout moment in 2016 ahead of the release of Planet Earth II, when footage of an iguana against hundreds of snakes went viral.
The astonishing television showed marine iguanas attempting to outrun a knot of racer snakes on Fernandina Island was labelled ‘the stuff of nightmares’.
Hatchlings could be seen emerging from the sand of the Galápagos island in the Pacific Ocean in June for what is the snakes’ best feeding opportunity of the year.
The footage showed some iguanas outrun the snakes to safety by the sea while others were caught before the snakes wrapped themselves around them.
When the crew saw the snakes for the first time, they were too shocked to film – and host Sir David Attenborough had never seen anything like it either, it was claimed.
The spiders hunt in packs, starting and stopping in unison in an unnerving game of musical statues
After laying around 50 eggs and feeding them with their decomposing insides, the tired mothers make the ultimate sacrifice
Director Jeff Wilson said the footage is among the best he has worked on in 30 years
Among the millions of viewers captivated by the footage shown at 8pm last night was Olympic rower Will Satch, who described it as a ‘real life horror film’.
The new footage of the African social spiders is likely to spark a debate among parents about what sacrifices they are willing to make for their children.
African social spiders live in large nests of up to 50 adult sisters, who hunt together in packs within the nests to engulf prey that becomes trapped in the spider webs.
Each mother lays up to 50 eggs. When they hatch , the mother feeds her spiderlings with regurgitated ‘milk’ made from decomposing her own insides.
The shocking footage was captured in Namibia and has never been seen before by television audiences.
Parenthood is also set to feature stories of gorillas, orangutans, elephants and cheetahs among many others.
The footage was captured over three years and over six continent’s and is the first BBC natural history series to focus on parenting.
The team used new technology to capture the weird and wonderful in the wild, including using military-grade infrared cameras mounted on gimbals on off-road vehicles o show hippos being chased by lions at night.
Parenthood airs on Sunday, August 3 at 7.20pm on BBC One. All episodes will be available on BBC iPlayer.
