New Zealand Journal of Zoology abstracts
Mask of wax: secretions of wax conceal aphids from detection by spider’s eyes
Rebecca Moss
Robert R. Jackson
School of Biological Sciences
University of Canterbury
Private Bag 4800
Christchurch, New Zealand
robert.jackson@canterbury.ac.nz
Simon D. Pollard*
Canterbury Museum
Rolleston Avenue
Christchurch, New Zealand
spollard@canterburymuseum.com
*Author for correspondence.
Abstract We investigated how insects use wax as a defence against visual predators, using a New Zealand salticid species, Marpissa marina, as the predator and Eriosoma lanigerum,
an aphid that covers itself with wax, as the prey. For live-prey
testing, the predator was presented with two aphids, one with its wax
covering intact and one with its wax removed. The predator ate more of
the waxless than wax-covered aphids. The predators were presented with
two lures at a time: (1) one that was fully covered with wax (hid the
aphid’s head) compared with one that was without wax (waxless) or
(2) one that was fully covered with wax compared with one that was only
partially covered with wax (the head of the prey exposed), or (3) one
that was waxless compared with one that was partially covered with wax.
The predators stalked waxless prey more often than they stalked prey
that was fully or partially covered with wax. When wax only partially
covered the prey (i.e., when the prey’s head was left exposed),
the predator more often stalked than when the insect was fully covered.
These findings suggest that the aphid’s wax covering functions in
part to hide prey-identification cues from vision-guided predators.
Keywords spiders; aphids; crypsis; wax; defence
Z05042; Received 21 December 2005; accepted 11 April 2006; Online publication date 19 July 2006
New Zealand Journal of Zoology, 2006, Vol. 33: 215–220
0301–4223/06/3303–0215 © The Royal Society of New Zealand 2006
PDF file of entire paper: Print-quality (216K) | screen-quality (249K)
This year's abstracts |
Journal home page |
All abstracts |
Publishing home page
