Behavioural Temperature Regulation

Abstract

Most of the information on temperature regulation in spiders has been deduced from their behaviour; this contrasts with other ectothermic animals, especially reptiles and insects, on which many direct measurements of temperature have been made. This chapter shows that spiders exhibit a broad spectrum of thermal behaviours and suggests behaviours which might be expected with further study; less than 0.1% of spider species have been examined in this context. The general background to thermoregulation has been covered well in a number of recent reviews (Bligh et al. 1976; Gans and Pough 1982) as well as in works concerned specifically with invertebrates (Cloudsley-Thompson 1970; Heinrich 1979, 1981; Crawford 1981).