Eavesdropping Spiders

wolf spider observing video playback of male courtship (credit: George Uetz)

So did you ever try to outdo potential competition when it came to winning the heart of that special someone?  According to a recent article on sciencedaily.com, a study has been done to show how male wolf spiders use eavesdropping during mating to match or even one-up the visual signals of their rivals.  This type of behavior is common among humans and other animals, but it has only been seen in vertebrates until now.  This new revelation among spiders shows us they may be more complex and intelligent than we realized.

In this study, male wolf spiders were collected from the wild, placed in a lab with a video of a "virtual" male spider that was sending out courtship signals, and observed.  The signals include a leg-tapping mating dance.  The researchers found that experience matters.  This behavior was first noticed in the wild during mating season.  Previous studies on lab-raised spiders, however, were inconclusive, leading them to believe the spiders in this study had been exposed to these courtship traits previously in nature.  The spiders reacted as though their "virtual rival" was courting a nearby female.