All the better to see you with . . .
- University of California, Davis, Department of Ophthalmology, 4860 “Y” Street, Suite 2400, Sacramento, CA 95817, USA; irschwab@ucdavis.edu
Distributed worldwide, the wolf spiders (lycosids) are descendants of the first terrestrial predators from the Devonian period, approximately 410–360 million years ago. These peripatetic hunters are one of only a few families of spiders that generally do not spin webs, although some in the family do use silk to line their burrows or to wrap their eggs.
Without the stationary death traps of their kin, these species must rely upon mechanical and visual senses for all matters of their behaviour from courtship to prey capture to predator avoidance. Since these behaviour traits are closely related, the species have probably been successful for 400 million years and their senses have been honed to razor sharpness, but are not exclusively visually based.
The cover photograph illustrates a scanning electron micrograph of the eyes of a common lycosid spider (Hogna spp) with four pair of eyes. In the lycosid family, the anterior row, found near the bottom of the electron micrograph, include two pairs that can be described as anteromedian or AM (principal eyes that point forward) …
