Use of local cues in the night-time navigation of the wandering desert spider <Emphasis Type="Italic">Leucorchestris arenicola</Emphasis> (Araneae,Sparassidae) |
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Authors: | Thomas Nørgaard Joh R Henschel Rüdiger Wehner |
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Institution: | (1) Department of Zoology, University of Zurich, Winterthurerstrasse 190, 8057 Zurich, Switzerland;(2) Gobabeb Training and Research Centre, P.O. Box 953, Walvis Bay, Namibia |
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Abstract: | Adult male Leucorchestris arenicola can walk round-trips of several tens of meters in search of females. Most excursions end with the spiders returning to their
burrow. For small animals homing over distances of several meters is theoretically impossible without the aid of external
cues. It was investigated, whether the spiders use local cues or they rely solely on global cues. Individually marked male
spiders were captured during their excursions and displaced several meters inside an opaque box. Ten out of twelve displaced
spiders returned to their burrows. This shows that the male L. arenicola are using local cues during their homing, as the comparatively small displacement distances could not be detected by means
of global, e.g. celestial cues. In order to test whether the spiders could be using olfactory guidance, the burrows were displaced
by 2 m while the spiders were out on their journeys. In 12 out of 15 experiments, the spiders did not find their burrows.
These results show that the burrows do not function as olfactory beacons for the homing spiders. |
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Keywords: | Sparassidae Homing External cues Landmarks Olfaction |
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