1974] 
Rovner & Knost — JV rapping of Prey 
401 
Table I. Bouts of prey-wrapping by female Lycosa rabida {*) and Lycosa 
punctulata (f) when offered multiple prey during a 30-min period. A 
total of 12 spiders was tested on each type of prey. (Sample sizes in 
parentheses.) 
Prey 
Bouts/ 
captures 
Mean 
revolutions/ 
bout 
Mean 
duration 
(sec) 
Mean onset 
after bite 
(min) 
^Mealworms 
16/40 
4.5(15) 
36(13) 
11 . 4 ( 8 ) 
^Grasshoppers 
28/27 
4.4(27) 
34(22) 
2.7(9) 
^Crickets 
50/40 
3.2(48) 
26(39) 
1.1(8) 
fCrickets 
6/32 
2.2 ( 6) 
16 ( 6) 
9.3(3) 
When beginning a bout of wrapping, the spider spread and wiggled 
its spinnerets, flexed its abdomen ventrad, and then pressed its anterior 
spinnerets to the substratum. (Sometimes additional attachment 
disks were placed on the substratum in this manner within an arc 
of 6o° or less.) Then the spider began to pivot above the prey. 
In about 10% of the cases the spider pivoted ^4 revolution (or 
sometimes revolution), fixed an attachment disk to the substratum, 
and then began to turn in the opposite direction. However, in most 
cases the spider pivoted in only one direction, while remaining cen- 
tered above the prey. During the first revolution, the silk was 
attached to the substratum at 2-5 points, the number perhaps de- 
pending on the prey’s bulk. Fewer attachment disks were placed 
during the next turn or two, and usually only one or none during 
later revolutions. 
During the first two or three turns, the spider usually held the 
prey in its chelicerae (Fig. 2). Consequently, as the spider revolved, 
the prey animals beneath it pivoted around with the spider. (Very 
large animals, while not held in the chelicerae during wrapping, and 
therefore not having their weight supported by the spider, were 
contacted by the palps, chelicerae, and sternum of the spider pivoting 
above.) If, as was the case with most prey, the spider held the prey 
in its chelicerae during early revolutions, it then released the prey 
during a subsequent turn and continued to pivot for one or more 
revolutions (Fig. 3). Throughout the process, the palps were used 
to contact or manipulate the prey. In L. rabida 80% of the wrapping 
bouts involved four or fewer revolutions (mean = 3.3 ± 2.1 SD; 
range = 1-14; n — 106). Some views of one such bout are sketched 
in Fig. 4. 
All three pairs of spinnerets were used during prey-wrapping. 
Data obtained from experimental animals indicated the same roles 
