Ogre-Faced, Net-Casting Spiders Use Auditory Cues to Detect Airborne Prey

Stafstrom, Jay A.; Menda, Gil; Nitzany, Eyal I.; Hebets, Eileen A.; Hoy, Ronald R.

doi:10.1016/j.cub.2020.09.048

Cited by 14 publications

(11 citation statements)

References 19 publications

(38 reference statements)

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“…2 D and E ) suggest that mechanical strain is actively induced on the spider’s legs when stimulated by airborne sound. In spiders, vibrational signals, such as faint acoustic stimuli, are presumably detected by the strain-sensitive lyriform organs located in spider legs ( 19 – 21 ).…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Outsourced hearing in an orb-weaving spider that uses its web as an auditory sensor

Zhou

Lai

Menda

et al. 2022

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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Significance The sense of hearing in all known animals relies on possessing auditory organs that are made up of cellular tissues and constrained by body sizes. We show that hearing in the orb-weaving spider is functionally outsourced to its extended phenotype, the proteinaceous self-manufactured web, and hence processes behavioral controllability. This finding opens new perspectives on animal extended cognition and hearing—the outsourcing and supersizing of auditory function in spiders. This study calls for reinvestigation of the remarkable evolutionary ecology and sensory ecology in spiders—one of the oldest land animals. The sensory modality of outsourced hearing provides a unique model for studying extended and regenerative sensing and presents new design features for inspiring novel acoustic flow detectors.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Outsourced hearing in an orb-weaving spider that uses its web as an auditory sensor

Zhou

Lai

Menda

et al. 2022

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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“…Previous dogma has understood that the reception, and thus importance, of air particle movement in communication would be limited because it only occurs at short distances from the source-approximately 0.5-1 wavelength (Kinsler, 1999;Jacobsen, 2007;Raboin and Elias, 2019). Recent studies, however (e.g., Shamble et al, 2016;Menda et al, 2019;Stafstrom et al, 2020) suggest that the detection of air particle movement may take place at much longer distances than previously thought (reviewed in Raboin and Elias, 2019), making it a viable mode of communication. Nonetheless, air particle movement (also referred to as near-field sound) has been overlooked and underappreciated as a signaling modality, and the impact of noise on this understudied signaling modality is even more unknown (Raboin and Elias, 2019).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Uncovering ‘Hidden’ Signals: Previously Presumed Visual Signals Likely Generate Air Particle Movement

et al. 2022

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Wolf spiders within the genus Schizocosa have become a model system for exploring the form and function of multimodal communication. In terms of male signaling, much past research has focused on the role and importance of dynamic and static visual and substrate-borne vibratory communication. Studies on S. retrorsa, however, have found that female-male pairs were able to successfully mate in the absence of both visual and vibratory stimuli, suggesting a reduced or non-existent role of these signaling modalities in this species. Given these prior findings, it has been suggested that S. retrorsa males may utilize an additional signaling modality during courtship—air particle movement, often referred to as near-field sound—which they likely produce with rapid leg waving and receive using thin filiform sensory hairs called trichobothria. In this study, we tested the role of air-particle movement in mating success by conducting two independent sets of mating trials with randomly paired S. retrorsa females and males in the dark and on granite (i.e., without visual or vibratory signals) in two different signaling environments—(i) without (“No Noise”) and (ii) with (“Noise”) introduced air-particle movement intended to disrupt signaling in that modality. We also ran foraging trials in No Noise/Noise environments to explore the impact of our treatments on overall behavior. Across both mating experiments, our treatments significantly impacted mating success, with more mating in the No Noise signaling environments compared to the Noise environments. The rate of leg waving—a previously assumed visual dynamic movement that has also been shown to be able to produce air particle displacement—was higher in the No Noise than Noise environments. Across both treatments, males with higher rates of leg waving had higher mating success. In contrast to mating trials results, foraging success was not influenced by Noise. Our results indicate that artificially induced air particle movement disrupts successful mating and alters male courtship signaling but does not interfere with a female’s ability to receive and assess the rate of male leg waving.

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“…Using a silken net spun of a fuzzy, mechanical-capture silk (cribellate silk) rather than gluey silk, deinopids remain motionless until a prospective prey comes into view. They lunge into a forward strike, extending their webs with their legs and then envelope their prey, rendering them immobile 1 , 4 – 7 . They are also capable of a backward strike detecting vibrations of flying prey, hence are not entirely reliant on their enlarged eyes for prey capture 7 .…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…They lunge into a forward strike, extending their webs with their legs and then envelope their prey, rendering them immobile 1 , 4 – 7 . They are also capable of a backward strike detecting vibrations of flying prey, hence are not entirely reliant on their enlarged eyes for prey capture 7 .…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Biogeography and eye size evolution of the ogre-faced spiders

Chamberland

Agnarsson

Quayle

et al. 2022

Sci Rep

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Net-casting spiders (Deinopidae) comprise a charismatic family with an enigmatic evolutionary history. There are 67 described species of deinopids, placed among three genera, Deinopis, Menneus, and Asianopis, that are distributed globally throughout the tropics and subtropics. Deinopis and Asianopis, the ogre-faced spiders, are best known for their giant light-capturing posterior median eyes (PME), whereas Menneus does not have enlarged PMEs. Molecular phylogenetic studies have revealed discordance between morphology and molecular data. We employed a character-rich ultra-conserved element (UCE) dataset and a taxon-rich cytochrome-oxidase I (COI) dataset to reconstruct a genus-level phylogeny of Deinopidae, aiming to investigate the group’s historical biogeography, and examine PME size evolution. Although the phylogenetic results support the monophyly of Menneus and the single reduction of PME size in deinopids, these data also show that Deinopis is not monophyletic. Consequently, we formally transfer 24 Deinopis species to Asianopis; the transfers comprise all of the African, Australian, South Pacific, and a subset of Central American and Mexican species. Following the divergence of Eastern and Western deinopids in the Cretaceous, Deinopis/Asianopis dispersed from Africa, through Asia and into Australia with its biogeographic history reflecting separation of Western Gondwana as well as long-distance dispersal events.

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Ogre-Faced, Net-Casting Spiders Use Auditory Cues to Detect Airborne Prey

Cited by 14 publications

References 19 publications

Outsourced hearing in an orb-weaving spider that uses its web as an auditory sensor

Outsourced hearing in an orb-weaving spider that uses its web as an auditory sensor

Uncovering ‘Hidden’ Signals: Previously Presumed Visual Signals Likely Generate Air Particle Movement

Biogeography and eye size evolution of the ogre-faced spiders

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