Male Wolf Spider Copies Dance Moves of Rivals After Watching Videos
Posted on January 6, 2012
Scientists put two tiny video screens in an enclosure so male Schizocosa ocreata wolf spiders (captured in the wild) could watch the courtship dances of other males spiders. In the video, a male wolf spider runs along the side of the enclosure looking for a way out, but it stops to watch the video screens. The spider even copies the leg-tapping mating dance one of the male spiders performed on the video. Take a look:
The researchers say "the observer spider adjusts the rate of leg-tapping behavior to match and even outperform the behavior of its rival, most likely as a form of pre-emptive mate competition."
George W. Uetz, a professor of biological sciences at the University of Cincinnati and senior author of the study, says, "This 'signal matching' behavior has only been seen before in vertebrate animals like birds or fish, and suggests that invertebrates like spiders may have more sophisticated behaviors than previously known. The closer we look at spiders, the more complex we see they are – their capacity for learning, memory and decision-making is far greater than we ever would have thought."
The study is being published this month in Biology Letters, a journal of the Royal Society of London.