Scorpion intelligence

HackoDis

Arachnosquire
Old Timer
Joined
Oct 12, 2006
Messages
115
Ead interesting experiment

Accept scorpions don't see with colors or anything.

I wonder what scorpions vision is like.

So how can someone do something like this on intelligence.

I think it's neat the hunting style the jumping spider uses.

Now if it was trial and error, there would be alot more dead jumping spiders.

Plus i suppose you could say trial and error is learning.
 

Michiel

Arachnoking
Old Timer
Joined
May 22, 2006
Messages
3,478
Portia is in direct opposition to your generalization. They display an incredible ability to learn. For example; Portia will pluck on the webs of araneomorphs. They will pluck in all kinds of random ways. Once they find a way that works (often mimicking prey closely or mating plucks on occasion) they will continue to use this whenever they encounter orb weavers. This is only one example of an amazing Portia behavior, and I doubt that such 'intelligence' is restricted only to Portia.

EAD063 your experiment and the one you described for scorpions are perfect examples of Pavlov aka Classical conditioning. This kind of thing can be demonstrated in a non-feeding manner too. Bang on a cage of an invertebrate. It will probably retreat. Continue to bang on the cage once or twice a day and the retreat will probably become a flinch. Eventually it will not respond to this annoyance. That is also classical conditioning, just with a negative stimuli instead of a positive one.

Hi lucanidae

Yes, I have seen Portia on the NGC and I concur with you, but I thought we discussed scorpions on this forum ;) There are some nice documents about several subjects, like pray capturing behavioural patterns.
And for classical conditioning, I think the experiments your refer to, are more fit in vertebrates than invertebrates, but on the other side, If no one tries to we will never know for sure. :D
By the way, it is a well known fact that in tarantula keeping, the soft knock on the enclosure (to scare that nasty baboon spider to its burrow, so you can remove the cricket leftovers)is frequently used on it wouldn't be succesfull if animals became unresponsefull from the continuous banging. The animals are under the impression that they are in danger when they hear a bang (in fact they receive a massive amount of soundwaves)and retreat.
I would worry if scorpions or tarantulas became unresponsful from stimuli like music, sounds etc, because it would indicate to me that there might be something wrong with them.

Regards, Michiel
 

pandinus

Arachnoking
Old Timer
Joined
May 14, 2004
Messages
3,088
in The Biology of Scorpions (Polis 1990) There is a 70 page chapter soley devoted to covering the subject of neurobiology in scorpions.


John
 

EAD063

Arachnoprince
Old Timer
Joined
Oct 3, 2006
Messages
1,415
I should go out and buy that book.
If your old enough to be in a university use can use HELIN and find the book wherever... 2 Universities in my state have the book and I'm in the smallest state, so I'm sure there are probaly a ton of couple floating around wherever you are. I think some high schools use HELIN also, mine did.


PS Michael, it is a good point that the expiriment is best suited for vertebrates, which is why I've been unable to come up with a solid way to try and replicate it. Food location expiriments may be interesting also. I need more room though. :(
 

HackoDis

Arachnosquire
Old Timer
Joined
Oct 12, 2006
Messages
115
well i can get it on amazon for 105 bucks.

Maybe i'll wait till i go to college.
Try a pheromone test. Se how the scorpion reacts to a lizard smell etc etc
 
Last edited:

EAD063

Arachnoprince
Old Timer
Joined
Oct 3, 2006
Messages
1,415
well i can get it on amazon for 105 bucks.

Maybe i'll wait till i go to college.
Try a pheromone test. Se how the scorpion reacts to a lizard smell etc etc
I once put an anole in a heterometrus enclosure. Thing was quick as a bugger, and had an amazing camaflouge in the plastic leafs I had as a decoration. The little guy only lasted under 12 hours though.
 

skinheaddave

SkorpionSkin
Arachnosupporter +
Joined
Aug 15, 2002
Messages
4,341
Polis (1990) can be gotten as a reprint here: http://wwwlib.umi.com/bod/fullcite?id=185892

And for classical conditioning, I think the experiments your refer to, are more fit in vertebrates than invertebrates,
How so? There was a student at my university who was doing some work with hissing cockroaches. She showed that the hissers eventually stopped responding to her, whereas they would still respond to other individuals. In other words, they had become habituated to manipulation in the presence of her scent/taste. The only reason a pavlovian bell won't work on these critters is that they don't really respond at all to bells.

I would worry if scorpions or tarantulas became unresponsful from stimuli like music, sounds etc, because it would indicate to me that there might be something wrong with them.
There are plenty of examples of habituation in tarantulas. If you have a copy of the Schultz & Schultz Tarantula Keeper Guide around then you can read the bit on habituation in there.

Cheers,
Dave
 

EAD063

Arachnoprince
Old Timer
Joined
Oct 3, 2006
Messages
1,415
I'm curious Dave if you know of such "conditioning" expiriments done on scorpions in specifically?

The research with the Zebra Danios were interesting, but they were also kept perfectly (reverse osmosis treated water, a defined day night schedule, fed mostly on live home cultured brine shirmp and perfectly maintained PH levels) so I have wondered whether these conditions affected the outcome of the expiriment and thus would affect the outcome of future ones aswell.
 

John Bokma

Arachnobaron
Old Timer
Joined
May 31, 2005
Messages
486
Personally I'd suggest there is an extremely strong correlation there, as they is with all neural networks, whether that be in arthropods, primates or computers.
I can only speak for ANN (software neural networks in this case), but what a neural network can do depends on the complexity inside the node (often the threshold function), the number of connections and the number of nodes, and from what I know about it it's not simply the more of all, the more a network can do. For example too many interconnections can make the learning very slow. Too many nodes can make that the neural network does things because it just remembers the entire trainingset.
 

HackoDis

Arachnosquire
Old Timer
Joined
Oct 12, 2006
Messages
115
If you could explain your ANN "theory" a little simpler.

So your saying the more nodes = slower learning but higher intelligence.

Lesser nodes = Learning not as great, lower intelligence.

Just trying to understand this.

Thanks
 

John Bokma

Arachnobaron
Old Timer
Joined
May 31, 2005
Messages
486
If there are too many nodes in an ANN it suffers from memory effect. Instead of trying to find rules hidden in the trainingset, it just learns all the trainingdata. Compare it with someone doing an exame while having access to Google and Wikipedia. You wouldn't call that person intelligent.

ANNs are often used to find the hidden rules in data so it can also work with new data. If an ANN has just learned the data it might give a completely wrong answer because it doesn't remember the answer.

An example: you can train an ANN with black and white photos as used in IDs and provide it with the sex of the person in the photo. If the ANN learns it might give quite accurate answers with new photos you feed it. If it just remembers it might give random answers if you feed it new photos.

(BTW: this is a real example, if I recall correctly the ANN was quite good at it and only got it wrong when people also had a hard time to see if the person in a photo was male or female).

Also added complexity might result in making the wrong decision in an urgent situation. A human might hesitate while an animal just automatically does the right and "more intelligent" thing.
 

konrad16660

Arachnosquire
Old Timer
Joined
Jun 30, 2006
Messages
87
a lot of people think that scorps are dumb. i have owned a lot of them. Some are really violent, while the emperors are more communal. You have to remember they can only sense light for the most part, so they aren't going to be able to do a lot of things mammals can. But among those that are communal I do believe they build relationships and communicate between eachother. I feel they all have their own personalities, so they are not as dumb as most people are set to believe. I think it depends on the sub-species as well. Because I have had some pretty dumb scorps to boot.
 

Michiel

Arachnoking
Old Timer
Joined
May 22, 2006
Messages
3,478
in the end I concur with fusion in the stimuli-response thing, scorpions cannot solve mathematical problems.......lucky them :D
 

HackoDis

Arachnosquire
Old Timer
Joined
Oct 12, 2006
Messages
115
They should make a show to find out if in a million years scorpions will be more intelligent.

Just imagine seeing a scorpion "talking" or making a trap....:drool:
 

skinheaddave

SkorpionSkin
Arachnosupporter +
Joined
Aug 15, 2002
Messages
4,341
They should make a show to find out if in a million years scorpions will be more intelligent.
This intrigues me. How is making a show going to come even close to answering this?

Cheers,
Dave
 

HackoDis

Arachnosquire
Old Timer
Joined
Oct 12, 2006
Messages
115
don't know, they had a show on a while back on animal planet. They made octopus more intelligent. Monkeys become the next humans, spiders got slightly bigger. Grrr
 

konrad16660

Arachnosquire
Old Timer
Joined
Jun 30, 2006
Messages
87
haha is scorpions could make traps and whatnot we would all be dead. although i think some of us would enjoy it here on the boards, hehe.;P
 
Top