The vampire spiders and the transplanted mosquito heads

This tweet by May Berenbaum will lead you, if you let it, to an entomological adventure:

Testing vampire spider preferences by transplanting male mosquito heads on female mosquito bodies. It’s alive!! See J Exp Biol 6/7

Berenbaum refers, tersely, to this study:

“The discerning predator: decision rules underlying prey classification by a mosquito-eating jumping spider,” Ximena J. Nelson [University of Canterbury, New Zealand] and Robert R. Jackson [International Centre of Insect Physiology and Ecology (ICIPE), Mbita Point, Kenya], Journal of Experimental Biology, vol. 215, July 1, 2012, pp. 2255-2261.

BONUS: Kathryn Knight offers commentary about the study.