[Lestat]

Thanks. Your explanation helps. I'm not sure I even understand what I'm asking, so it's hard for me to pose the question correctly. I think you helped with this too....

<font color="blue"> I'm unclear on what's not to get. How could those that survived NOT pass on the trait to their offspring? </font>

Passing on a Trait. That's seems to be it. A physical trait gets passed on, because offspring fair better with the change. So it's retained, right? So I can see how you inherit a physical trait. I can also see how beneficial behavioral traits can be inherited. But...

Freezing, is a behavioral trait that occurs in mid-life. Unlike beneficial mid-life physical traits (like waiting to a certain age to become reproductive), this behavioral trait is presumably "learned" in adulthood. After the fact, so to speak.

I can see how a salmon "learns" to swim upstream at the end of its life, because it completes a purpose. A purpose that generations of salmon have completed before him. Freezing, on the other hand, doesn't necessarily complete any meaningful purpose. In fact, if a spider were never put into a position to have to freeze, it wouldn't. It only freezes under certain conditions. How does it learn what those conditions are is what I want to know. Remember, we are talking about an almost zero level of intelligence. Insects are pretty much automatons from what I understand. I could understand a gazelle learning something later in life from its herd. I can't understand how this ocurrs with spiders.

I know I'm very ignorant here, so I request people have patience with me.