Myrmarachne ( Latin Myrmex - ant and Latin Arachne - spider) is a genus of araneomorphic spiders from the subfamily Myrmarachninae in the family of spider-horses ( Salticidae ), which imitate ants, waving their front legs (which is similar to the movement of the antennae of ants). About 200 species.
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 The female spider Myrmarachne plataleoides from Thailand resembles a weaver ant ( Oecophylla smaragdina ) | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Myrmarachne Macleay , 1839 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Distribution
They are found mainly in the tropics of the Old World ( Australia , Asia , Africa ). Several species in the New World and in the Palearctic. About 80 species in southeast Asia [1] .
Description
Length is from 3 to 9 mm. The cephalothorax is elongated, in males long cheliceers directed forward. On the abdomen and cephalothorax often there are constrictions (imitation of the body shape of ants). Color varies from black to yellow, depending on the mimicking species of ants [2] ..
Mirmekomorphy
There is an external similarity in the structure with some species of ants , next to which they live, which can protect these arthropods from being eaten by predators (birds, wasps). For such morphological similarities, these spiders are called "mimicking ant" ( English antmimicking spiders ). The same phenomenon is observed among other genera of spiders in the families Corinnidae and Zodariidae .
Classification
Among 200 species:
- Myrmarachne bamakoi
- Myrmarachne cowanii
- Myrmarachne foreli Lessert, 1925 - Angola , Botswana , Malawi , South Africa
- Myrmarachne formica (Doleschall, 1859) - Ambon (island in Indonesia)
- Myrmarachne formicaria (de Geer, 1778) - ( Palearctic introduced in the USA )
- Myrmarachne formicaria tyrolensis (CL Koch, 1846) - Central Europe
- Myrmarachne incerta
- Myrmarachne japonica (Karsch, 1879) - Russia , China , Korea , Taiwan , Japan
- Myrmarachne kiboschensis
- Myrmarachne legon
- Myrmarachne lugubris (Kulczynski, 1895) - Russia , China , Korea
- Myrmarachne marshalli
- Myrmarachne melanocephala Macleay, 1839 typus - Asia
- Myrmarachne plataleoides
- Myrmarachne solitaria
- Myrmarachne tristis
Gallery
Myrmarachne formicaria , male
Myrmarachne japonica , female
Myrmarachne plataleoides , male
Myrmarachne inermichelis
Notes
- ↑ Murphy & Murphy 2000: 304
- ↑ Wanless, FR A revision of the spider genera Belippo and Myrmarachne (Araneae: Salticidae) in the Ethiopian region (Eng.) // Bull. Br. Mus. nat. Hist. (Zool.). - 1978. - Vol. 33 , no. 1 . - P. 1-139 .
Literature
- Edmunds, M. (2006): Do Malaysian Myrmarachne associate with particular species of ant? Biological Journal of the Linnean Society, Volume 88, Issue 4, 1 August 2006, Pages 645–653, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1095-8312.2006.00649.x
- Edwards, GB; Benjamin, SP ( 2009 ): A first look at the phylogeny of the Myrmarachninae, with rediscovery and redescription of the type species of Myrmarachne (Araneae: Salticidae). Zootaxa , 2309 : 1-29. [one]
- Murphy, Frances & Murphy, John ( 2000 ): An Introduction to the Spiders of South East Asia. Malaysian Nature Society , Kuala Lumpur.
- Nelson, XJ, Jackson, RR, Edwards, GB & Barrion, AT ( 2006 ): Living with the enemy: jumping spiders that mimic weaver ants. The Journal of Arachnology 33 : 813-819. PDF ( M. assimilis )
- Nelson, XJ, Jackson, RR ( 2006 ): Compound mimicry and trading predators by the males of sexually dimorphic Batesian mimics. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences , 273 (1584): 367-372.
- Wanless, FR (1978) A revision of the spider genera Belippo and Myrmarachne (Araneae: Salticidae) in the Ethiopian region. Bulletin of the British Museum of Natural History (Zoology), 33, 1–139.
- Yamasaki, T .; Ahmad, AH 2013: Taxonomic study of the genus Myrmarachne of Borneo (Araneae: Salticidae). Zootaxa 3710 (6): 501–556. doi: 10.11646 / zootaxa.3710.6.1 reference page
- Yamasaki, T. & Edwards, GB 2013: The genus Myrmarachne (Araneae, Salticidae) in Flores, Indonesia. ZooKeys 299 : 1-20. doi: 10.3897 / zookeys.299.4970 reference page
Links
- Photos of Japanese species of the genus Myrmarachne (eng.)
- salticidae.org
- Platnick, Norman I. (2011): The world spider catalog , version 12.0. American Museum of Natural History .