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

Abstract 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.