Mate-odour identification by both sexes of Evarcha culicivora, an East African jumping spider

Evarcha culicivora is an unusual salticid spider because each sex actively courts the other and both sexes make distinctive mate-choice decisions. Here we use olfactometer experiments for investigating the ability of each sex to identify potential mates on the basis of odour alone. Test spiders spent more time in the vicinity of opposite-sex conspecific source spiders, regardless of whether or not these source spiders had previously mated, when the alternatives were conspecific individuals of the same sex, juveniles or a control (no odour source). This trend held regardless of the test spider's and source spider's age after reaching maturity and, for male test spiders, it held regardless of the test spider's mating status. However, after females had mated they no longer expressed a preference for male odour.