Berrios, Catalina ， Martinez, Meylin ， Taucare-Rios, Andres
2026 REVISTA CHILENA DE ENTOMOLOGIA 2026 52(卷), 1(期), (51-58页)
Abstact. Desert spiders generally are tolerant or resistant to desiccation, as they must develop strategies to live in high temperatures and prevent continued water loss. However, in extreme conditions, as the temperature increases, their metabolism increases, so they could lose water as the temperature rises. The objective of this work was to determine the effect of temperature on water loss in the spider Sicarius thomisoides. Spiders were subjected to different temperatures: 20 degrees C, 30 degrees C and 40 degrees C. Our results indicate that this spider has excellent resistance to desiccation, since, on average of the three temperatures, losing only 7.25 +/- 3.14% of the initial weight at 40 degrees C, being able to resist extremely high temperatures. In addition, we could not determine a significant effect of body size. Water loss was similar among individuals of different stage of development.