A spider that feeds indirectly on vertebrate blood by choosing female mosquitoes as prey

Type of content
Journal Article
Publisher's DOI/URI
Thesis discipline
Degree name
Publisher
University of Canterbury. Biological Sciences
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Language
Date
2005
Authors
Jackson, R.R.
Nelson, X.J.
Sune, G.O.
Abstract

Spiders do not feed directly on vertebrate blood, but a small East African jumping spider (Salticidae), Evarcha culicivora, feeds indirectly on vertebrate blood by choosing as preferred prey female mosquitoes that have had recent blood meals. Experiments show that this spider can identify its preferred prey by sight alone and by odor alone. When presented with two types of size-matched motionless lures, E. culicivora consistently chose blood-fed female mosquitoes in preference to nonmosquito prey, male mosquitoes, and sugar-fed female mosquitoes (i.e., females that had not been feeding on blood). When the choice was between mosquitoes of different sizes (both blood- or both sugar-fed), small juveniles chose the smaller prey, whereas adults and larger juveniles chose the larger prey. However, preference for blood took precedence over preference for size (i.e., to get a blood meal, small individuals took prey that were larger than the preferred size, and larger individuals took prey that were smaller than the preferred size). When presented with odor from two prey types, E. culicivora approached the odor from blood-fed female mosquitoes significantly more often the odor of the prey that were not carrying blood.

Description
Citation
Jackson, R.R., Nelson, X.J., Sune, G.O. (2005) A spider that feeds indirectly on vertebrate blood by choosing female mosquitoes as prey. Proceedings of the National Academy of Science (USA), 102, pp. 15155-15160.
Keywords
predation, prey choice, Salticidae, behaviour
Ngā upoko tukutuku/Māori subject headings
ANZSRC fields of research
Fields of Research::31 - Biological sciences::3109 - Zoology::310901 - Animal behaviour
Fields of Research::31 - Biological sciences::3109 - Zoology::310913 - Invertebrate biology
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