Title
Christopher Brown - Is Autotomy Costly? A Tale of Spiders, of Legs Lost, and of What Comes After
Files
Description
Autotomy is defined as the intentional sacrifice of a body part, and is usually done to avoid being eaten after an animal has been grabbed by a predator. This is obviously beneficial, since loosing a body part is better than losing your life! However, missing this body part may prove costly in the future. In this talk I examine leg autotomy in the wolf spider Pardosa valens from Arizona, and show how the loss of a leg can affect this spider's running speed on both its short-term and long-term survival.
Publication Date
10-19-2017
Keywords
E.O. Grundset, Lecture, Christopher Brown, Autonomy, Spiders
Disciplines
Biology
Recommended Citation
Southern Adventist University, "Christopher Brown - Is Autotomy Costly? A Tale of Spiders, of Legs Lost, and of What Comes After" (2017). E.O. Grundset Lecture Series. 21.
https://knowledge.e.southern.edu/grundset/21