Sleep and sleep-like states are present across the animal kingdom, with recent studies convincingly demonstrating in arthropods, nematodes, even cnidarians. However, existence of different sleep phases taxa is as yet unclear. In particular, study rapid eye movement (REM) still largely centered on terrestrial vertebrates, particularly mammals birds. The most salient indicator REM eyes during this phase. Movable eyes, however, have evolved only a limited number lineages-an adaptation notably...

The body of most creatures is composed interconnected joints. During motion, the spatial location these joints changes, but they must maintain their distances to one another, effectively moving semirigidly. This pattern, termed “biological motion” in literature, can be used as a visual cue, enabling many animals (including humans) distinguish animate from inanimate objects. Crucially, even artificially created scrambled stimuli, with no recognizable structure that maintains semirigid...

Female mate choice decisions are often based on a variety of male characteristics, some which may reflect quality via condition-dependent trait expression. Here, we explore the condition dependence secondary sexual in wolf spider and examine its influence female choice. In Schizocosa uetzi, mature males possess multimodal courtship display (visual + seismic) they slowly raise lower their dark colored forelegs. Foreleg color is highly variable among S. uetzi with respect to both total amount...

Protective mimicry, in which a palatable species avoids predation by being mistaken for an unpalatable model, is remarkable example of adaptive evolution. These complex interactions between mimics, models and predators can explain similarities organisms beyond the often-mechanistic constraints typically invoked studies convergent However, quantitative protective mimicry focus on static traits (e.g. colour shape) rather than dynamic like locomotion. Here, we use high-speed cameras behavioural...

'Biological motion' refers to the distinctive kinematics observed in many living organisms, where visually perceivable points on animal move at fixed distances from each other. Across kingdom, species have developed specialized visual circuitry recognize such biological motion and discriminate it other patterns. Recently, this ability has been distributed system of jumping spiders. These eight-eyed animals use six eyes perceive motion, while remaining two (the principal anterior medial eyes)...

Although many arthropods have the ability to voluntarily lose limbs, how these animals rapidly adapt such an extreme perturbation remains poorly understood. It is thought that moving with certain gaits can enable efficient, stable locomotion; however, switching requires complex information flow between and coordination of animal's limbs. We show here upon losing two legs, spiders switch a novel, more statically gait, or use temporal adjustments without gait change. The resulting higher...

Abstract Visually detecting, recognizing and responding appropriately to predators increases survival. Failure detect a predator or long decision time carries high potentially fatal costs. Consequently, many animals show general anti‐predatory responses towards threatening stimuli, for example, looming objects. However, in the context of lurking stalking predators, visual recognition is based on static cues, making this task computationally demanding. Jumping spiders (Salticidae) have superb...

The observation of both human and animal kinematics has proven to be tremendous scientific value for understanding biological phenomena development medical treatments. Rodents, in particular, are widely used as a model disease. Unfortunately, they also notoriously difficult use experiments requiring the motion capture (MoCap) kinematic analyses. Current commercially available technology rodent MoCap (e.g. Digigait [1, 2], Motorater, Noldus Catwalk [3, 4]) requires either frequent anaesthesia...

Abstract Background For diurnal animals that heavily rely on vision, a nocturnal resting strategy offers protection when vision is compromised, crucial. We found population of common European jumping spider ( Evarcha arcuata ) rests at night by suspending themselves from single silk thread attached overhead to the vegetation, categorically unlike typical retreat-based in this group. Results In comprehensive study, we collected first quantitative field and qualitative observation data...

Examining locomotion has improved our basic understanding of motor control and aided in treating impairment. Mice are a premier model human disease increasingly the system choice for neuroscience. High frame rates (higher than 150 Hz) needed to quantify kinematics running mice, due their high stride frequency (up 10 Hz). Thus manual tracking, especially multiple markers, becomes time-consuming impossible large sample sizes. Therefore, an automated method is necessary. Several methods have...

Abstract Visual motion analysis is fundamental to survival across the animal kingdom. In insects, our understanding of underlying computations has centered on Hassenstein-Reichardt detector, which computes two-point cross-correlation via multiplication; in mammalian cortex, it postulated that a similar signal computed by comparing matched squaring operations. Both these operations are difficult implement biophysically precise fashion; moreover, they fail detect more complex multipoint local...

Abstract Over the last 50 years, point-light displays have been successfully used to explore how animals respond dynamic visual stimuli—specifically, differentiation of biological from non-biological. These stimuli are designed preserve movement patterns while minimizing static detail, with single dots representing each main joints a moving animal. Imposed by their internal skeleton, vertebrate movements follow specific semi-rigid pattern, termed “biological-motion”, which can be distinguish...

Abstract The term biological motion refers to the peculiar kinematics of living organisms. Their interconnected joints move at a fixed distance from each other, pattern that is common among all locomotive, rigid animals. Across animal kingdom, many species have developed specialized circuitry visually recognize biologically moving stimuli and discriminate them other patterns. Recently, this skill has also been observed in distributed visual system jumping spiders. These eight-eyed animals...