Hunger and sequential responses in the hunting behavior of salticid spiders.

Abstract

The hunting behavior of jumping spiders (Saltici-dae) consists of 4 responses that occur in a regular order. According to the hypothesis of the present study, progressively higher levels of drive are required for performance of the successive responses of this hunting chain. Three periods of food deprivation, and consumption of food during the test were used to vary drive, while the stimulus situation was kept adequate for performance of complete chains. Performance of the initial response required less drive than performance of any later response, but performance of the third and fourth responses of the chain required no more drive than performance of the second.