Hickmania troglodytes (lat.) Is a species of spiders from the Austrochilidae family, allocated to the monotypic genus Hickmania . The largest spiders of Tasmania : body length - up to 2.1 cm, leg span - up to 18 cm [2] . Confined to caves, but also found in other shaded, moist biotopes [2] . An endemic species for Tasmania, quite common in caves in different areas of the island [3] .
| Hickmania troglodytes |
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| Scientific classification |
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| No rank : | Bilateral symmetrical |
| Infrastructure : | Araneomorphic Spiders |
| Superfamily : | Austrochiloidea |
| Subfamily : | Hickmaniinae Lehtinen , 1967 |
| Gender: | Hickmania Gertsch , 1958 |
| View: | Hickmania troglodytes |
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| International scientific name |
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Hickmania troglodytes ( Higgins et Petterd , 1883) [1] |
| Synonyms |
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- Theridion troglodytes basionym
- Ectatosticta australis
- Ectatostica troglodytes
- Ectatosticta troglodytes
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Content
Large size spiders: males are up to 16 mm long, females are larger - up to 21 mm. Carapace is reddish-brown, without patterns; abdomen pale brown. 8 eyes are located on the cephalothorax in two rows, the medial anterior pair is smaller. The cribellar plate is not divided. The legs are thin and long. In males, the metatarsus of the second pair of legs is bent and used to hold the female’s cephalothorax during mating. They differ from other species of the Austrochilidae family in that the second pair of lungs in them is not transformed into the trachea, as well as the structure of the genitals [4] .
The most common habitat of Hickmania troglodytes is caves, in which hunting networks of spiders of this species are usually confined to the twilight zone, rarely located outside the limits of sunlight [2] . Outside the caves, they were found in hollow tree trunks and stumps, abandoned mines and wells [5] [6] . The fishing nets are horizontal, very large: they can exceed 1 m in diameter; the largest of the networks found was 122 cm long, 61 cm wide [5] [6] [4] . Between the smooth supporting threads, the sticky threads of the cribellate silk are stretched.
The species was first described in 1883 by Edmund Higgins and William Petterd from a female and a male, which the researchers attributed to the spider-crypt , called Theridion troglodytes [7] . The species epithet troglodites was given by them due to the fact that these spiders were found in caves (in the upper reaches of the Mersey River). Later in 1902, the French arachnologist Eugene Simon independently investigated an immature individual of the same species and included it in a family of lampshade spiders (Hypochilidae) called Ectatosticta australis [8] . In 1904, William Rainbow revealed the synonymy of these two names and, having studied in detail the structure of these spiders, supported Simon's hypothesis that the species belongs to lampshade spiders [9] . In 1958, the American arachnologist Willis Gerch , continuing to consider the species in the same family, singled it out to the monotypic genus Hickmania , naming the genus in honor of the Tasmanian arachnologist Vernon Hickman, who sent him material on this species [3] .
During a taxonomic revision of cribellate spiders, the Finnish arachnologist Pekka Lehtinen isolated this species into a separate Hickmaniidae family [10] , but during the subsequent review, other researchers lowered this taxon to a subfamily Hickmaniinae in the Austrochilidae family [4] .
- ↑ Hickmania troglodytes (English) . World Spider Catalog version 15.5 (2 January 2015).
- ↑ 1 2 3 Doran NE, Richardson AMM, Swain R. The reproductive behavior of Hickmania troglodytes , the Tasmanian cave spider (Araneae, Austrochilidae) // Journal of Zoology. - 2001. - Vol. 253. - P. 405-418. - DOI : 10.1017 / S0952836901000371 .
- ↑ 1 2 Gertsch WJ The spider family Hypochilidae // American Museum Novitates. - 1958. - No. 1912 . - P. 1-28.
- ↑ 1 2 3 Forster R., Platnick NI, Gray M. A review of the spider superfamilies Hypochiloidea and Austrochiloidea (Araneae, Araneomorphae) // Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History. - 1987. - Vol. 185, No. 1 . - P. 1-116.
- ↑ 1 2 Hickman VV Studies in Tasmanian spiders. Part II // Papers and Proceedings of the Royal Society of Tasmania. - 1928. - P. 158-175.
- ↑ 1 2 Hickman VV Some common spiders of Tasmania // Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery. - 1967. - P. 1-112.
- ↑ Higgins ET, Petterd WF Description of a new cave-inhabiting spider, together with notes on mammalian remains from a recently discovered cave in the Chudleigh district // Papers and Proceedings of the Royal Society of Tasmania. - 1883. - P. 191-192.
- ↑ Simon E. Descriptions de quelques arachnides nouveaux de la section de Cribellatés // Bulletin de la Société Entomologique de France. - 1902. - P. 240-243.
- ↑ Rainbow WJ Studies in Australian Araneidae III // Records of the Australian Museum. - 1904. - Vol. 5. - P. 326—336.
- ↑ Lehtinen PT Classification of the cribellate spiders and some allied families, with notes on the evolution of the suborder Araneomorpha // Annales Zoologici Fennici. - 1967. - Vol. 4. - P. 199-468.
