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Homing in the wolf spider Lycosa tarantula (Araneae, Lycosidae): the role of active locomotion and visual landmarks

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Abstract

Previous studies on the homing of the wolf spider Lycosa tarantula have shown that it is carried out by path integration. Animals using this mechanism must measure the distance walked and the angles turned. This study aims to understand if wolf spider L. tarantula is able to estimate the walked distance in an outward path. As this information is more likely obtained by proprioceptive mechanisms, active or passive displacements have been performed. An active locomotion was found essential to estimate distances. During passive locomotion, spiders searched for their burrows near the release point while when displaced actively the inbound journey was longer than the outbound one. The possible use of visual landmarks near the burrow was also tested as a cue to complete the inbound journey. Our results did not show that L. tarantula used these visual landmarks to find the burrow. L. tarantula seems to use only proprioceptive information obtained during the outbound path to estimate the distance traveled.

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Acknowledgments

We are grateful to Dr. Robert R. Jackson and Dr. Jacqueline Kovoor for critical reading of the manuscript. We thank Dr. Ken Cheng and two other reviewers for their very useful comments. We greatly appreciate E. Ortega-Escobar for his assistance with the preparation of figures. All experiments complied with the current laws of the country (Spain) where they were performed.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Psychology, University Autónoma of Madrid, 28049, Madrid, Spain

    Carmen Reyes-Alcubilla, Miguel A. Ruiz & Joaquín Ortega-Escobar

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  1. Carmen Reyes-Alcubilla
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  2. Miguel A. Ruiz
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  3. Joaquín Ortega-Escobar
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Joaquín Ortega-Escobar.

Appendix

Appendix

One measure of resolution of a simple eye is the sampling frequency of the retina, ν s, which is the highest resolvable spatial frequency for a grate-like image (Land 1985). The sampling frequency of the retina is given by the following equation (Land 1985):

$$\nu _{\text{s}} {\text{ = }}{1 \mathord{\left/{\vphantom {1 {2\Delta \Phi }}} \right.\kern-\nulldelimiterspace} {2\Delta \Phi }}\left( {{\text{radians}}^{ - {\text{1}}} } \right){\text{ = }}57.3 \times {1 \mathord{\left/{\vphantom {1 {2\Delta \Phi }}} \right.\kern-\nulldelimiterspace} {2\Delta \Phi }}\left( {{\text{degrees}}^{ - {\text{1}}} } \right)$$
(1)

ΔΦ has been calculated for the four types of eyes in L. tarantula (Kovoor and Muñoz-Cuevas 1996/1997) with the four following results (for females): AMEs, 0.087 radians; ALEs, 0.059 radians; PMEs, 0.022 radians; PLEs, 0.027 radians. Therefore, by applying Eq. 1, we obtained the following values of ν s for the different eyes: AMEs, 5°; ALEs, 3.4°; PMEs, 1.3°; and PLEs, 1.5°. Given the visual fields of the different eyes (Land 1985), the eyes most probably used to discriminate the grating would be the AMEs and the PMEs. The first ones could discriminate the grating at a longer distance than the second ones that would function in the vicinity of the grating.

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Reyes-Alcubilla, C., Ruiz, M.A. & Ortega-Escobar, J. Homing in the wolf spider Lycosa tarantula (Araneae, Lycosidae): the role of active locomotion and visual landmarks. Naturwissenschaften 96, 485–494 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00114-008-0498-1

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