首页|Masquerading predators deceive prey by aggressively mimicking bird droppings in a crab spider

Masquerading predators deceive prey by aggressively mimicking bird droppings in a crab spider

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In aggressive mimicry,a predator accesses prey by mimicking the appearance and/or behavior of a harmless or beneficial model in order to avoid being correctly identified by its prey.The crab spider genus Phrynarachne is often cited as a textbook example of masquerading as bird droppings(BDs)in order to avoid predation.However,Phrynarachne spiders may also aggressively mimic BDs in order to deceive potential prey.To date,there is no experimental evidence to support aggressive mimicry in masquerading crab spiders;therefore,we performed a field survey,a manipulative field experiment,and visual modeling to test this hypothesis using Phrynarachne ceylonica.We com-pared prey-attraction rates among BDs,spiders,and control empty leaves in the field.We found that although all prey combined and agromyzid dipterans,in particular,were attracted to BDs at a higher rate than to spiders,other dipterans and hymenopterans were attracted to BDs at a similar rate as to spiders.Both spiders and BDs attracted insects at a significantly higher rate than did con-trol leaves.As predicted,prey was attracted to experimentally blackened or whitened spiders sig-nificantly less frequently than to unmanipulated spiders.Finally,visual modeling suggested that spiders and BDs can be detected by dipterans and hymenopterans against background leaves,but they are indistinguishable from each other.Taken together,our results suggest that insects lured by spiders may misidentify them as BDs,and bird-dropping masquerading may serve as aggres-sive mimicry in addition to predator avoidance in P.ceylonica.

aggressive mimicryluremanipulated spidersmasqueradeprey attractionPhrynarachne ceylonica

Long YU、Xin XU、Zengtao ZHANG、Christina J.PAINTING、Xiaodong YANG、Daiqin LI

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State Key Laboratory of Biocatalysis and Enzyme Engineering of China&Centre for Behavioural Ecology&Evolution,School of Life Sciences,Hubei University,Wuhan 430062,Hubei,China

College of Life Sciences,Hunan Normal University,Changsha 410006,Hunan,China

Te Aka Mātuatua School of Science,University of Waikato,Hamilton,New Zealand

CAS Key Laboratory of Tropical Forest Ecology,Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden,Chinese Academy of Sciences,Yunnan 666303,China

Department of Biological Sciences,National University of Singapore,14 Science Drive 4,117543,Singapore

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National Natural Science Foundation of ChinaNational Natural Science Foundation of ChinaSingapore Ministry of Education AcRF Tier 1 grant

NSFC3207043031872229R-154-000-B18-114

2022

动物学报(英文版)
中国科学院动物研究所,中国动物学会

动物学报(英文版)

CSCDSCI
影响因子：0.198
ISSN：1674-5507
年,卷(期)：2022.68(3)
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