The visual systems of different spider families can be correlated to their life histories and behaviors. Many diurnal cursorial spiders like salticids have enlarged principal eyes and small secondary eyes with a wide field of view for detecting prey. Nocturnal hunters like wolf spiders (Family Lycosidae) and net-casting spiders (Family Deinopidae) have small principal eyes and enlarged secondary eyes. Meanwhile, some ambush predators like crab spiders (Family Thomisidae) and web-building spiders like long-jawed orb weavers (Family Tetragnathidae) tend to have small, evenly spaced principal and secondary eyes. Furthermore, the visual processing pathway is separate for the principal and secondary eyes. And the principal and secondary eyes each have their own neural pathway within the spider brain (Strausfeld and Barth, 1993).
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