Data from: Mate choice as a third context in which a mosquito-specialist jumping spider attends to red-coloured cues

For animals living in a noisy world, the volume of potentially relevant
information exceeds attentional capacity, but relying on the same cue in
multiple contexts might be a solution to this problem. This solution has
been suggested by findings from research on Evarcha culicivora, a
mosquito-specialist jumping spider in which both sexes rely on
red-coloured cues in the context of identifying blood-carrying Anopheles
mosquitoes as preferred prey. In a second context, males also attend to
the red-coloured faces of other males that are displayed in male-male
interactions. Here, as a third context, we present evidence that the
presence of a male’s red face is also used as a mate-choice cue for
females. In a Y-shaped arena, we gave females the choice between two
size-matched stationary male specimens enclosed in glass vials. With
colour as the only variable, significantly fewer females chose (i.e.,
approached and tapped) the vials that housed males with their red facial
coloration concealed by application of black liquid eyeliner when the
alternative was sham-treated males that had their red facial coloration
intact. Our findings suggest that, for E. culicivora, relying on the same
colour in three different contexts may function as a way to minimize
attentional load.