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Full-Text Articles in Life Sciences

Spider Brain Morphology & Behavior, Skye M. Long Jul 2016

Spider Brain Morphology & Behavior, Skye M. Long

Doctoral Dissertations

Spiders are ideal model animals for experimental and comparative studies of behavior, learning and perception. They display many complex behaviors, such as the multimodal mating dances of lycosid spiders, the stealthy hunting strategies of the jumping spider Portia sp., to the labile sociality of theridiids. Spiders also demonstrate a wide range of cognitive capabilities. Spiders perceive their environment using multiple sensory modalities including: chemosensory organs; lyriform and slit-sense organs and specialized hairs that detect vibration and air movement; and up to eight eyes that vary in function, some able to detect polarization and a broad spectrum of light, including …


Predominantly Left-Dominant Mandibular Chirality In Coleoptera, Mathew L. Brust, W. Wyatt Hoback Jan 2016

Predominantly Left-Dominant Mandibular Chirality In Coleoptera, Mathew L. Brust, W. Wyatt Hoback

Department of Entomology: Faculty Publications

Patterns of mandible chirality have been virtually unexplored in beetles, apart from a single study in 2010. Here we present the mandible chirality trends found in 58 beetle species representing the families Carabidae (52 species), Cerambycidae (three species), and Silphidae (three species) that display overlapping mandibles. Mandible chirality was not random in the groups examined, all of which exhibited a dominant trend towards left-superiority. The degree to which each taxonomic group displayed the left-superior trend differed, with tiger beetles showing the greatest dominance (99%) and longhorned beetles the weakest (71%).


Current Disposition Of Earwigflies, Merope Tuber Newman And Austromerope Poultoni Killington (Mecoptera: Meropeidae), In The Florida State Collection Of Arthropods, James C. Dunford, Louis A. Somma, David Serrano Jan 2016

Current Disposition Of Earwigflies, Merope Tuber Newman And Austromerope Poultoni Killington (Mecoptera: Meropeidae), In The Florida State Collection Of Arthropods, James C. Dunford, Louis A. Somma, David Serrano

Insecta Mundi

We provide the current holdings of Meropeidae in the Florida State Collection of Arthropods (FSCA). To date, FSCA holds a well-curated collection of extant meropeids representing 17 U.S. states and Western Australia (n = 316 Merope tuber Newman, five Austromerope poultoni Killington). Merope tuber records from Vermont, Texas, and South Carolina are published here for the first time. A total of 298 pinned M. tuber and four pinned A. poultoni; six M. tuber specimens preserved in 95% ethanol; and 12 M. tuber and one A. poultoni sputter-coated with gold-palladium for SEM are available for researchers interested in studying this unique …