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Perception of ultraviolet light by crab spiders and its role in selection of hunting sites

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Abstract

The perception of ultraviolet (UV) light by spiders has so far been only demonstrated in salticids. Crab spiders (Thomisidae) hunt mostly on flowers and need to find appropriate hunting sites. Previous studies have shown that some crab spiders that reflect UV light use UV contrast to enhance prey capture. The high UV contrast can be obtained either by modulation of body colouration or active selection of appropriate backgrounds for foraging. We show that crab spiders (Thomisus sp.) hunting on Spathiphyllum plants use chromatic contrast, especially UV contrast, to make themselves attractive to hymenopteran prey. Apart from that, they are able to achieve high UV contrast by active selection of non-UV reflecting surfaces when given a choice of UV-reflecting and non-UV reflecting surfaces in the absence of odour cues. Honeybees (Apis cerana) approached Spathiphyllum plants bearing crab spiders on which the spiders were high UV-contrast targets with greater frequency than those plants on which the UV contrast of the spiders was low. Thus, crab spiders can perceive UV and may use it to choose appropriate backgrounds to enhance prey capture, by exploiting the attraction of prey such as honeybees to UV.

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Acknowledgments

This research was funded by the Ministry of Environment and Forests, Government of India. We thank R. Yettiraj for help in collecting spiders from the campus and from Bangalore for the behavioural experiments, A.B. Vishwas for acquiring and maintaining the A. cerana hives, as well as Mahua Ghara, Yuvaraj Ranaganathan and B.R. Guru Prasad for enthusiastic support. We are grateful to Almut Kelber and Eric Warrant for critical comments on the manuscript. We declare that the experiments comply with the “Principles of animal care”, publication No. 86-23, revised 1985 of the National Institute of Health, and also with the current laws of the country in which the experiments were performed.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Centre for Ecological Sciences, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, 560 012, India

    Ramachandra M. Bhaskara, C. M. Brijesh, Saveer Ahmed & Renee M. Borges

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  1. Ramachandra M. Bhaskara
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  2. C. M. Brijesh
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  3. Saveer Ahmed
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  4. Renee M. Borges
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Correspondence to Renee M. Borges.

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Bhaskara, R.M., Brijesh, C.M., Ahmed, S. et al. Perception of ultraviolet light by crab spiders and its role in selection of hunting sites. J Comp Physiol A 195, 409–417 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00359-009-0419-6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00359-009-0419-6

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