Vampire jumping spiders identify victims by their antennae
Thursday, June 7, 2012 - 10:30
in Paleontology & Archaeology
Ravenous Evarcha culicivora jumping spiders -- vampire spiders -- have very specific tastes: they prefer to dine on blood-engorged female Anopheles mosquitoes. So how do they pick out female Anopheles from all other insects? Biologists have discovered that the spiders identify their victims by their antennae alone, even though the details of the antennae are too tiny to be seen by humans.