Development of prey-specific predatory behavior in a jumping spider (Araneae: Salticidae)

Abstract

Development of prey-specific predatory behavior in a jumping spider (Araneaei Salticidae)

Optical cues used in prey identification by a juvenile jumping spider, Yllenus arenarius (Araneae, Salticidae)

“…Secondly, the prey-specific behaviour has been reported for Y. arenarius capturing morphologically similar insects chosen for the tests (Bartos 2002(Bartos , 2007. Similar prey-specific behaviour was also reported for very young juveniles of Y. arenarius hunting thrips and caterpillars, which suggested that the spiders soon after hatching are able to recognize the prey (possibly without prior experience with the prey) and adopt preyspecific behaviours observed in adult spiders (Bartos 2008;Bartos & Szczepko 2012).…”

“…Although a possibility that some of the spiders encountered a prey before the experiments could not be entirely excluded, the method used for collecting the spiders and low prey availability in the field made such encounters with different prey unlikely, as discussed in the methods section in this study and elsewhere (Bartos 2008). Spiders are known to modify their behaviour with age and experience (Bays 1962;Edwards & Jackson 1994;Punzo 2004;Nelson et al 2005;Bartos & Szczepko 2012), but this does not seem to be the case of the spiders used in this study because of a very short time that elapsed from their emergence to capture, and also because some combinations of the cues used for the tests are purely virtual and do not occur in nature (e.g. winged caterpillar-like models with antennae).…”

“…A spider approaching HRE-prey typically takes the shortest route to the prey and jumps on the prey from a long distance. A spider approaching LRE-prey circles the prey and approaches from its anterior end (frontal approach), it rarely stalks but jumps from a short distance and often, temporarily, leaves the wriggling prey after initial fang-piercing and venom injection (Bartos 2002(Bartos , 2007Bartos & Szczepko 2012). Both tactics were found in inexperienced spiders capturing leafhoppers (HRE-tactic), caterpillars (LRE-tactic) and thrips (LRE-tactic), which suggests that these predatory tactics and the cues used for prey discrimination are innate (Bartos 2008).…”

“…All spiders used in the tests were very young juveniles (mean body length: 1.71 ± 0.11 mm, n = 10) of Yllenus arenarius Menge, 1868 (Araneae, Salticide). Their experience in prey capture was limited, as discussed further in this paragraph and in other studies (Bartos 2008;Bartos & Szczepko 2012). The spiders were captured for the experiments 1-14 days from the day the first newly hatched spider was found on the surface.…”

“…Long distances of attack (longer than two body lengths) were commonly observed in different genera of salticoids (Euryattus, Hasarius) and spartaeinaes (Brettus, Cyrba) hunting HRE-prey (Jackson 1985(Jackson , 1988a(Jackson , 1990Jackson & Hallas 1986;Nagata et al 2012). However, distance of attack and other prey-specific behaviours depend not only on prey type, but also on other variables, such as spider visibility to the prey (Bear & Hasson 1997;Bartos et al 2013), spider size (Bartos 2002) and age (Bartos & Szczepko 2012;Nelson et al 2005), therefore comparisons of findings from different experiments should be done very cautiously.…”