Earlier experiences may play an important role in the choice of hunting sit
es, but their effects on the foraging repertoire of most animals remain poo
rly understood. I tested the role of previous flower choices (hunting sites
) by penultimate-instar female crab spiders Misumena vatia in making subseq
uent patch-choice decisions. M. vatia is a sit-and-wait predator, and the t
wo flower species used, ox-eye daisy Chrysanthemum leucanthemum and common
buttercup Ranunculus acris, are important hunting sites. Spiders with diffe
rent immediate experience showed similar abort-term (<1 day) giving-up time
s on the two flower species, independent of their previous substrate. Howev
er, four-fifths of the individuals that remained a day or longer tended to
leave buttercups sooner than daisies, especially if they had previously occ
upied daisies. Thus they may directly assess the quality of a potential hun
ting site, perhaps in response to prey abundance, but previous experience m
ay play a minor role as well. Of spiders that made several consecutive choi
ces of hunting sites, those on daisies often confined these runs to daisies
(one of two years); those on buttercups did not exhibit comparable fidelit
y. Spiders molting into the adult stage almost always subsequently chose th
e same flower species (either daisy or buttercup) as the one on which they
molted. Thus, juvenile experiences may influence adults, the critical stage
when virtually all of the spiders' reproductive resources are gathered, ev
en if this resulted from imprinting on their molt sites rather than carryin
g information over the molt.