Arthropods: Spiders and Peatlands

Arthropods: Spiders of Peatlands in Denmark and Tundra

Spiders are special: fear and disgust evoked by pictures of arthropods

Because all spiders are predators and most subdue their prey with poison, it has been suggested that fear of spiders is an evolutionary adaptation. However, it has not been sufficiently examined whether other arthropods similarly elicit fear or disgust. Our aim was to examine if all arthropods are rated similarly, if only potentially dangerous arthropods (spiders, bees/wasps) elicit comparable ...

Cockroaches, locusts, and envenomating arthropods: a promising source of antimicrobials

Objective(s): To present a brief overview of various natural sources of antimicrobials with the aim of highlighting invertebrates living in polluted environments as additional sources of antimicrobials. Materials and Methods: A PubMed search using antibacterials, antimicrobials, invertebrates, and natural products as keywords was carried out. In addition, we consulted conference proceedings, or...

Are arthropods at the heart of virus evolution?

The huge diversity of negative-sense RNA viruses in insects, spiders and other arthropods suggests that these animals could be central to virus origin and evolution.

Salticid predation as one potential driving force of ant mimicry in jumping spiders.

Many spiders possess myrmecomorphy, and species of the jumping spider genus Myrmarachne exhibit nearly perfect ant mimicry. Most salticids are diurnal predators with unusually high visual acuity that prey on various arthropods, including conspecifics. In this study, we tested whether predation pressure from large jumping spiders is one possible driving force of perfect ant mimicry in jumping sp...