吸血鬼蜘蛛如何辨雌雄

蛛如其名，吸血鬼蜘蛛（Evarcha culicivora）熱衷吸血，腹飽血液的蚊子則是它們的嘉餚美饌。眾所周知，只有雌蚊子才會吸血，而這些蜘蛛是如何準確鎖定蚊子女士的呢？

為了找到答案，研究人員……肢解了很多蚊子，然後將蚊子屍塊拼成了不同的“拼接怪”：把雌蚊子的頭用膠粘到雄蚊子腹部上，再把雄蚊子的頭接在雌蚊子身體上，有些身體部分充滿血液。他們讓蜘蛛接近這些經過重組的蚊子標本，觀察蜘蛛會盯上哪隻。

不出預料，這些蜘蛛非常關注腹部，會撲向充盈著鮮血的“拼接怪”；但同時也雙目（確切的說是八目）緊盯……

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Vampire Spiders Home In on Female Mosquitoes

Vampire spiders， as the name suggests， like blood。 And they feast on blood-filled mosquitoes to get it。 But only female mosquitoes suck blood。 So how do spiders home in on the ladies？

To find out， researchers， well， took apart a bunch of mosquitoes。 Then they mixed and matched body parts。 They glued female heads onto male abdomens and male heads onto female bodies， some of which had blood-filled bellies。 Then they let the spiders loose near these reassembled specimens， and watched to see which ones the spiders stalked。

As the researchers predicted， the spiders paid close attention to the abdomen， pouncing on the Frankensquitos filled with blood。 But the spiders also kept an eye—or eight eyes。。。

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封面圖來源：Royal Mayhem，CC BY-SA 4。0， via Wikimedia Commons

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