200 
Psyche 
[Vol. 88 
Experimental Procedure 
Four females and 2 males of P. mystaceus were reared to maturity 
from an eggsac containing 12 eggs. 3 The spiders were housed 
separately in 9 x 1 cm plastic petri dishes; twice a week they were 
provided with water by moistening a wad of cotton within the dish 
and were fed larvae of the cabbage looper, Trichoplusia ni (Hiibner). 
Two different techniques were used for observing courtship. In 
one method, the male was placed directly into a female’s petri dish, 
on the side opposite the female. In the other method, the male and 
female were placed 5-15 cm apart on a 30 x 10 cm section of a live- 
oak branch, in order to simulate natural conditions. Temperature 
ranged from 24-26° C for all sessions. 
Six separate filming and/or recording sessions lasted 10-90 min. 
each. Films were made using a Beaulieu Super-8-mm movie camera 
and an Auricon Pro 600 16-mm movie camera. Sound recordings 
were made with a Sony TC-756-2 reel-to-reel tape recorder and a 
Turner S22D microphone. The audiospectrogram was produced on 
a Kay 7029A Sound Spectrograph. 
Results 
Courtships were observed for one of the males (the second male 
was killed by the first female with which he was placed). Typically a 
male placed into the petri dish housing a female almost immediately 
begins palpating the female’s draglines and her abandoned nests, 
continuing this palpal exploration until he detects the female 
visually. 
If the female is not inside a nest when first seen by the male 
(usually from 3-6 cm), the male begins producing a soft, audible trill 
that is systematically repeated. By apparently engaging the substrate 
with enlarged setae (macrosetae, Fig. 1; similar to those observed on 
lycosids by Rovner, 1975), leverage is produced enabling a stridu- 
latory mechanism on the palpus to be operated. This mechanism 
consists of a plectrum-like projection of the tibial apophysis which 
fits into a bowl-shaped area on the cymbium containing a compli- 
cated file system. The entire mechanism is located laterally (ectally); 
in lycosids it is located dorsally. Also, lycosids have the file on the 
3 Gravid female P. mystaceus collected by Robert Dye, 26 October 1975, 4 miles north 
of Texas state line at a rest stop on 1-35 in Oklahoma, under a rock. Eggs were laid 
November, 1975. 
