Spider attracted to human odor

[urbpan]

This BBC story is about a jumping spider that feeds on malaria-carrying Anopheles gambiae mosquitoes. Researchers found that it was attracted to the odor of sweaty socks (by comparing its reactions to clean vs. sweaty socks). That's pretty cool--I haven't before seen a predator on a parasite attracted to the odor of the parasite's host, but it must happen.

I would like to know if the spider is attracted to the odor of other vertebrate hosts of mosquitoes. The most interesting sentence of the article is this: "When they smell blood, they can launch into feeding frenzies where they kill up to 20 mosquitoes in rapid succession, and not necessarily to eat all of them."

Comments

[nutmeg.livejournal.com]

It's actually quite common among specialized predators/parasitoids of herbivorous insects for the predator to cue on the host volatiles (especially volatiles released as the plant is damaged). I admit to being relatively ignorant of tritrophic interactions in systems other than plant/herbivore/parasitoid, so I don't know about how common this is in other systems. I think I recall reading something about an insect that keys on vertebrate carcasses waiting for it's prey items to arrive so it may eat the insects that come to feed on the carcass.

[stardustmajick.livejournal.com]

It's like they are vigilantes, out to end malaria.

[urb-banal.livejournal.com]

Perhaps the hosts need socks?

I saw an episode of Survivorman and he had so many flying insects (butterflies too) attached to him. He was in the jungle and made no bones about not smelling too good...

[badnoodles.livejournal.com]

The mosquitoes are also significantly attracted to stinky human foot odor (I read the papers for my thesis). It's not surprising that a predator would be exploiting the same kairomone for it's own purposes.

Maybe stinky feet just cut through the background odor profile for arthropods?

[iheartoothecae.livejournal.com]

I knew I liked jumping spiders.

[bedfull-o-books.livejournal.com]

Jumping spiders are adorable

[wirrrn.livejournal.com]

Sounds ace! Just removed a White-Tailed Spider (Lampona cylindrata) from the house to the park over the street a few moments ago. It's the one spider I won't tolerate in the house...