Walking Behavior Observed in Phoxichilidium femoratum (Rathke, 1799) and Nymphon brevirostre Hodge 1863 Collected from Kandalaksha Bay of the White Sea, Russia

• Published in: International Journal of Oceanography Vol. 2014; pp. 1 - 3
• Main Author: Fornshell, John A.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: New York Hindawi Publishing Corporation 01.01.2014; Hindawi Limited
• Subjects: Marine; Nymphon brevirostre; Phoxichilidium femoratum; INW, Russia; PNE, White Sea
• ISSN: 1687-9406; 1687-9414
• DOI: 10.1155/2014/845407

In this study, the walking behavior of Phoxichilidium femoratum and Nymphon brevirostre was investigated using video recordings. The walking behavior of P. femoratum while walking over the colonial hydroids that they normally feed on and on relatively smooth glass surfaces was observed. In the case of N. brevirostre, only walking on smooth glass was observed. The movement of the legs while waking does not display a metachronal pattern like that observed in the true spiders. As the animals move, the walking legs on the leading side of the animal are used to pull the animal forward while those on the trailing side make little or no contribution to the motion of the animal. The promoter/remoter motions of the coxa 1-coxa 2 joint of the walking legs are involved in azimuthal changes in the body’s orientation, but not in paraxial locomotion. The extension of the tarsus and propodus segments appears to occur as a result of hydrodynamic drag when the legs are being flexed and/or pressed against a solid substrate.