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1 April 2005 SCYTODES VS. SCHIZOCOSA: PREDATORY TECHNIQUES AND THEIR MORPHOLOGICAL CORRELATES
Robert B. Suter, Gail E. Stratton
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Abstract

Wolf spiders (Lycosidae) typically subdue prey using their legs for capture and their fangs for the injection of venom. Spitting spiders (Scytodidae), in contrast, subdue prey by entangling them, at a distance, in a spitted mixture of silk, glue, and venom that immobilizes and may also kill them. We selected individuals of Schizocosa duplex (Lycosidae) and Scytodes sp. (Scytodidae) of approximately the same mass and carapace width to provide a quantitative assessment of their relative allocations of biomass to morphological features that might be expected to vary with prey-capture technique. As expected, the wolf spiders allocated significantly more to legs, chelicerae, and fangs, and significantly less to the venom glands, than did the spitting spiders. Further comparisons of the legs and chelicerae of the two species provided surprises. First, the legs of Scytodes were 42% longer than those of Schizocosa despite smaller overall allocation to the legs in Scytodes. And second, although the relative sizes of the chelicerae differ greatly, the shapes of the chelicerae of Schizocosa and Scytodes were not significantly different despite the radically different tasks those structures must fulfill.

Robert B. Suter and Gail E. Stratton "SCYTODES VS. SCHIZOCOSA: PREDATORY TECHNIQUES AND THEIR MORPHOLOGICAL CORRELATES," The Journal of Arachnology 33(1), 7-15, (1 April 2005). https://doi.org/10.1636/M03-25
Received: 14 April 2003; Published: 1 April 2005
KEYWORDS
allometry
resource allocation
Spitting spider
wolf spider
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