Foraging behaviour, habitat use and population size of the desert horned viper in the Negev desert.

The desert horned viper occurs in the dunes of the northwestern Negev desert, Israel. We report on a 2 year study on the viper's behaviour and ecology in its natural habitat. We examined whether the vipers moved faster in a vegetation-dense microhabitat versus an open dune area and detected much slower movement in the former.

The value of spatial experience and group size for ant colonies in direct competition.

Animals often search for food more efficiently with experience. However, the contribution of experience to foraging success under direct competition has rarely been examined. Here we used colonies of an individually foraging desert ant to investigate the value of spatial experience.

Evidence for competition and cannibalism in wormlions.

Trap-building predators, such as web-building spiders and pit-building antlions, construct traps to capture their prey. These predators compete over sites that either enable the construction of suitable traps, are prey rich, or simply satisfy their abiotic requirements. We examined the effect of intraspecific competition over suitable space in pit-building wormlions.

Do pit-building predators prefer or avoid barriers? Wormlions' preference for walls depends on light conditions.

Ambush site selection by sit-and-wait predators is a complex process, involving biotic and abiotic considerations, which greatly affect hunting success and costs. Wormlions are fly larvae that dig pit-traps in loose soil and hunt the arthropod prey falling into their pits. They are abundant in urban environments, found below buildings that provide cover, and many of their pits are dug adjacent to walls.