PZ Myers. 2005 Oct 25. Vampire by proxy. <http://pharyngula.org/index/weblog/vampire_by_proxy/>. Accessed 2008 Nov 20.
Posted on M00o93H7pQ09L8X1t49cHY01Z5j4TT91fGfr on Tuesday, October 25, 2005
Vampire by proxy
It's heartwarming that when people see articles about bizarre feeding or sexual practices in invertebrates, they instantly think of me and send me a PDF (thanks, Kevin Bolding!) Here's a spider, Evarcha culicivora, with a happy appetite—it eats mosquitos. We Minnesotans would be pleased with that.
However, it prefers to snack on mosquitos that have already had a blood meal. It likes its prey to load up on our blood first, and then it catches the engorged mosquito and gets a tasty dollop of red-blooded chordate juice with the crunchy insect. We're like ketchup to these guys!
Spiders do not feed directly on vertebrate blood, but a small East African jumping spider (Salticidae), Evarcha culicivora, feeds indi- rectly on vertebrate blood by choosing as preferred prey female mosquitoes that have had recent blood meals. Experiments show that this spider can identify its preferred prey by sight alone and by odor alone. When presented with two types of size-matched motionless lures, E. culicivora consistently chose blood-fed female mosquitoes in preference to nonmosquito prey, male mosquitoes, and sugar-fed female mosquitoes (i.e., females that had not been feeding on blood). When the choice was between mosquitoes of different sizes (both blood- or both sugar-fed), small juveniles chose the smaller prey, whereas adults and larger juveniles chose the larger prey. However, preference for blood took precedence over preference for size (i.e., to get a blood meal, small individuals took prey that were larger than the preferred size, and larger individuals took prey that were smaller than the preferred size). When presented with odor from two prey types, E. culicivora approached the odor from blood-fed female mosquitoes signifi- cantly more often the odor of the prey that were not carrying blood.
More power to the clever arachnid, I guess, but I'm just not used to thinking of myself as a condiment.
Jackson RR, Nelson XJ, Sune GO (2005) A spider that feeds indirectly on vertebrate blood by choosing female mosquitoes as prey. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 102(42):15155-60.
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That is way cool. Keeping the miracle of transubstantiation in mind, one might say that even though E. culicivora prefers mosquitos, it has "Catholic" taste. Sorry...
#: Posted by on 10/25 at 12:35 PM
- If we are catchup, the poor mosquitoes are french-fries!
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Well, if you joined the military, you'd be mustered.
#: Posted by Ron Sullivan on 10/25 at 01:30 PM
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"Well, if you joined the military, you'd be mustered."
Groan... -
No, man, you're not the condiment, you're the MEAL!
It's the the poor mosquito that get's the short end: it's just the shrink-wrap packaging.#: Posted by on 10/25 at 02:12 PM -
It's heartwarming that when people see articles about bizarre feeding or sexual practices in invertebrates, they instantly think of me
We'll do anything for you, Professor!#: Posted by on 10/25 at 02:31 PM -
You know the trouble with articles like that one is that evolution has more wonders to show us than any but the most poetic among us have words to adequately express the glory of it.
#: Posted by on 10/25 at 03:46 PM
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You know the trouble with articles like that one is that evolution has more wonders to display than any but the most poetic among us have words to adequately express its glory.
#: Posted by on 10/25 at 03:58 PM
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Spiders are such beautiful creatures, but I've always been irrationally (or so I thought) afraid of them. Now I find out that some of them want to vicariously drink my blood?!
*whimper*#: Posted by on 10/25 at 05:01 PM -
Anyone know where I could purchase a dozen of these spiders?
#: Posted by on 10/25 at 05:13 PM
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Salticids are just simply the coolest spiders there are.
I highly recommend Wayne Maddison's Tree of Life web entry (http://www.tolweb.org/tree?group=Salticidae) on them: he has phenomenal video of their mating dances. - For example, watch this: http://www.tolweb.org/tree/eukaryotes/animals/arthropoda/arachnida/araneae/salticidae/++salticidae/movies/tarsalis.mov and see if they're not the most adorable arachnid there is.
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"Well, if you joined the military, you'd be mustered."
Groan...
You have no idea how Ron relishes responses like that.#: Posted by Chris Clarke on 10/25 at 10:45 PM -
Evarcha, the culicivora
may sound (to some) somewhat pejora-
tive; but mosquitos
are bottles of treatos
the wine is fine, not the amphora#: Posted by on 10/26 at 01:33 AM -
More power to the clever arachnid, I guess, but I'm just not used to thinking of myself as a condiment.
We want to be the main meal damn it!#: Posted by on 10/26 at 05:01 AM -
Oh no... I loathe mosquitoes and am allergic to the bites, so yay, go spiders. On the other hand, I'm petrified of arachnids - a vampire spider? Aaargh!
They're all out to get me, I tell you, all those bloody invertebrates. Especially those quislings the spiders. Bill Bailey has it right: we're all human slaves in an insect nation.#: Posted by Republic of Palau on 10/26 at 07:47 AM -
Bloodthirsty spiders on the web!
When will the movie premier? Preferably with a spider-squid hybrid, so PZ will be really happy.#: Posted by on 10/26 at 03:56 PM -
Individuals unintentionally import many undesirable species. Here it seems is a most excellent time to import a creature that will work for us. Lobbie your "law" maker to import the evarcha culicivora. It is especially timely with the earth warming due to potential malaria, as well as the west nile virus.
Ken Young