Factors Influencing the Duration of Prey-Catching of a Crab Spider,Misumenops tricuspidatus (Araneae:Thomisidae)

In this experiment, the speed of predation of Misumenops tricspidatus on Drosophila is studied. The result shows that length of body size has no impact on the predatory speed of Misumenops tricspidatus , while temperature , starvation and sex have remarkable influence on the speed of predation of it. 25 ℃ is the optimal temperature for its predation. It slow down its predatory speed under a high temperature of 34 ℃ or a low temperature of 14 ℃.Under a starvation of 3 days or 4 days, the speed of predation is the fastest. The speed of male spider is normally larger than that of female spider. Besides, the coexistence of spiders, for example female and male, female and female, male and male , respectively also has some effect on the predatory speed of Misumenops tricuspidtus . When two male spiders coexist, they both slow down their predatory speeds apparently. On the contrary, when two female spiders coexist, there is not any obvious change on each one. When one male spider and one female spider coexist, the decrease of speed of male spider is significant while that of female spider is not.