Quinlan T G, Calver M C, Smith G T
School of Biological & Environmental Sciences, Murdoch University, 6150, Murdoch, Western Australia.
External Studies Unit, Murdoch University, 6150, Murdoch, Western Australia.
Oecologia. 1993 Oct;95(4):459-462. doi: 10.1007/BF00317427.
Scorpions have lengthy periods of inactivity, which may be caused either by a long physiological digestion time or predator avoidance or both. We used a quantitative immunological assay to monitor the amount of prey antigen remaining in the hepatopancreas of Urodacus armatus and U. novaehollandiae for 32 days after a meal to test the hypothesis of a long digestion time. In both species, prey antigen concentration in the hepatopancreas increased between 0.25 and 0.5 days after feeding, probably because of incomplete transfer of prey proteins from the large preoral cavity to the hepatopancreas at this stage of digestion. This was followed by a rapid decline, and by 3 days after feeding less than 25% of ingested antigen remained in each species. Small prey residues could still be detected up to 32 days. Prey decay curves in both species were best fitted by a log-log transformation, and were not significantly different. Since digestion is essentially complete after 3 days, it appears that longer periods of post-feeding inactivity are for predator avoidance, not digestion. However, the 32-day detection period exceeds those reported for other invertebrates, and suggests an unusual digestive physiology in scorptions.
蝎子有很长一段时间不活动，这可能是由于较长的生理消化时间、躲避捕食者或两者兼而有之。我们使用定量免疫测定法来监测饱餐一顿后32天内，武装尤罗德蝎和新荷兰尤罗德蝎肝胰腺中剩余的猎物抗原量，以检验消化时间长这一假设。在这两个物种中，进食后0.25至0.5天，肝胰腺中的猎物抗原浓度增加，这可能是因为在消化的这个阶段，猎物蛋白质从大的口腔前部向肝胰腺的转移不完全。随后迅速下降，到进食后3天，每个物种中摄入的抗原残留量不到25%。直到32天仍能检测到少量猎物残渣。两个物种的猎物衰减曲线通过对数-对数转换拟合效果最佳，且无显著差异。由于3天后消化基本完成，似乎进食后较长时间的不活动是为了躲避捕食者，而非消化。然而，32天的检测期超过了其他无脊椎动物的报道，这表明蝎子具有不同寻常的消化生理。
