Cerveira & Jackson—Pisaurid spiders from Australia and Sri Lanka

New Zealand Journal of Zoology abstracts

Prey, predatory behaviour, and anti-predator defences of Hygropoda dolomedes and Dendrolycosa sp. (Araneae: Pisauridae), web-building pisaurid spiders from Australia and Sri Lanka

Ana Cerveira

Departamento de Zoologia e Antropologia
Faculdade de Ciencias
Universidade de Lisboa
Portugal

Robert R. Jackson

Department of Zoology
University of Canterbury
Private Bag 4800
Christchurch, New Zealand
email: r.jackson@zool.canterbury.ac.nz

Abstract Pisaurids are most often described as hunting spiders, but Hygropoda dolomedes and Dendrolycosa sp. are tropical pisaurids that build sheet webs on the tops of large waxy leaves. Prey records from the field show that dipterans dominate the diets of these species (60% of 85 records for H. dolomedes and 55% of 80 records for Dendrolycosa sp.). Mosquitoes are taken especially often (32% of the records for H. dolomedes and 25% of the records for Dendrolycosa sp.). Prey-capture behaviour, feeding, and anti-predator defence are described. Methods are developed for inducing spiders to build webs on leaves and artificial leaves in the laboratory.

Keywords spiders; webs; predation; anti-predator defence; mosquitoes

Z00031 Received 4 September 2000; accepted 19 January 2002
New Zealand Journal of Zoology, 2002, Vol. 29: 119–133
0301–4223/02/2902–0119 $7.00/0 © The Royal Society of New Zealand 2002

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