Abstract

ANGULO ORDONES, Gabriela Guadalupe; DOR, Ariane; CAMPUZANO GRANADOS, Emmanuel Franco  and  IBARRA NUNEZ, Guillermo. Predatory behavior of two spider species of the genus Phonotimpus (Araneae: Phrurolithidae). Acta Zool. Mex [online]. 2019, vol.35, e3502061.  Epub Nov 29, 2019. ISSN 2448-8445.  https://doi.org/10.21829/azm.2019.3502061.

We studied the predatory behavior of two spider species of the genus Phonotimpus (Araneae: Phrurolithidae) when confronted with four different types of potential prey (one Collembola, two Hemiptera and one Psocoptera). These spiders live in the soil leaf litter of a cloud forest and coffee orchards in Chiapas, Mexico. There are no previous studies of the hunting behavior for this spiders’ family. Due to the small size of the spiders, the study was made in laboratory conditions with video recordings of the encounters with each prey type. From the analyses of the video recordings we established a catalog of 16 behavioral acts that the spiders displayed in the encounters with prey, among these we characterized “waving” and “attack”. The recordings showed that both spider species had significant higher aptitudes to attack and capture springtails than hemipterans and psocopterans, the spiders displayed a richer behavioral repertoire when confronted the springtails and, for Phonotimpus pennimani a higher activity level when confronting the springtails. Thus, our results are similar to other studies on prey consumption in laboratory conditions by two different species of Phrurolithidae, pointing as highly possible that, in its natural habitat, springtails are an important part of the prey spectrum of the Phrurolithidae. The recordings also showed that both spider species employ two hunting strategies. One is ambushing, where the spider remains fixed in one place for relatively long periods, waiting for the approach of a potential prey, and the other is active searching, where the spider actively wanders its milieu until it encounters a potential prey. In terms of the distribution of times during encounters, ambushing predominated over active searching.

Keywords : Hunting; collembola; ambushing; active searching.

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