Passage I

Jumping spiders prey on many types of small insects. Researchers predicted that the jumping spider Habronattus pyrrithrix would prefer prey of some colors over prey or other colors. Three experiments were conducted to test this prediction.

Experiment 1

Small crickets (Acheta domesticus) were dyed either red, yellow, green, blue, or brown when they drank water containing a dye. Two crickets of each color were placed in the same box. Then, an H. pyrrithrix jumping spider that had been recently captured from the wild (wild-caught) was placed in the center of the box, and the color of each cricket eaten by the spider during 1 hr was recorded. Each time a cricket was eaten, an additional cricket of the same color was added to the box. This procedure was repeated with 99 additional wild-caught H. pyrrithrix jumping spiders. The average number of crickets of each color eaten in 1 hr is shown in Figure 1.

Experiment 2

Experiment 1 was repeated using the same set of 100 wild-caught jumping spiders, which had been kept in cages in the laboratory for 4 weeks. The average number of crickets of each color eaten in 1 hr is shown in Figure 2.

Experiment 3

Experiment 1 was repeated except with 100 laboratory ­raised H. pyrrithrix jumping spiders that had spent their entire lives in cages in the laboratory. The average number of crickets of each color eaten in 1 hr is shown in Figure 3.

Figures adapted from Lisa A. Taylor et al., "Colour Use by Tiny Predators: Jumping Spiders Show Colour Biases During Foraging." ©2014 by The Association for the Study of Animal Behaviour.