| Atypus piceus | |
|---|---|
 | |
Scientific classification  | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Arthropoda |
| Subphylum: | Chelicerata |
| Class: | Arachnida |
| Order: | Araneae |
| Infraorder: | Mygalomorphae |
| Family: | Atypidae |
| Genus: | Atypus |
| Species: | A. piceus |
| Binomial name | |
| Atypus piceus (Sulzer, 1776) | |
| Synonyms | |
Aranea picea Contents | |
Atypus piceus is a mygalomorph spider of the family Atypidae. It occurs in Europe to Moldavia, and Iran and is the type species of the genus Atypus.
Males are about 10 mm (0.39 in) long without chelicerae, females up to 15 mm (0.59 in). Males are of a deep black, while spiderlings and females are dark brown with a violet hue. The very long posterior spinnerets consist of three segments, the last segment features a light blot, which is helpful in identifying the species. A. piceus can live for more than 10 years. [1]
Adults live in up to 30 centimetres (12 in) deep tubes with a diameter of about 10 mm. The silken lining continues above ground for about 10 centimetres (3.9 in), where it is camouflaged with matter from the vicinity. The mating period is from June to July, when the males search for females. The spiderlings hatch during autumn and overwinter in the mother's burrow without feeding. After emerging in spring, they climb nearby plants and use strands of silk to fly away (ballooning).
Atypus piceus is possibly the result of hybridisation of A. affinis and A. muralis . A. muralis has posterior spinnerets with four segments, A. affinis with three, and A. piceus has three, but the white blot could be result of this hybridisation. [1]
The western mosquitofish is a species of freshwater fish, also known commonly, if ambiguously, as simply mosquitofish or by its generic name, Gambusia, or by the common name gambezi. Its sister species, the eastern mosquitofish,, is also referred to by these names.
Atypidae, also known as atypical tarantulas or purseweb spiders, is a spider family containing only three genera. They are accomplished ambush predators that spend most of their time in a sock-like, silken retreat on the ground from where they kill their prey.
A spinneret is a silk-spinning organ of a spider or the larva of an insect. Some adult insects also have spinnerets, such as those borne on the forelegs of Embioptera. Spinnerets are usually on the underside of a spider's opisthosoma, and are typically segmented. While most spiders have six spinnerets, some have two, four, or eight. They can move both independently and in concert.
Leucorchestris arenicola, commonly called the dancing white lady spider, is a huntsman spider in the family Sparassidae and genus Leucorchestris. It is commonly found in the Namib desert of Namibia. It is often mistaken with the similarly named Carparachne aureoflava, or more commonly known as the wheel spider from the same location. L. arenicola relies on seismic vibrations, called drumming, for communication. It taps its foremost legs on the sand to send messages to other white lady spiders. Male L. arenicola will travel over 50 m in one night searching for a mate. If they find a mate, they must be extremely careful, for drumming the wrong message can be deadly. One of the major features that characterizes its nocturnal behavior is its specialized vision, using eight eyes in different orientations to capture a panoramic view of the surroundings. L. arenicola spiders use temporal summation in order to be able to see dim lighting during night-time wanderings. The species was first described by Reginald Frederick Lawrence in 1962, who described all the species in the genus Leucorchestris.
Atypus, also called purseweb spiders, is a genus of atypical tarantulas first described by Pierre André Latreille in 1804. It occurs in Eurasia, with one species reaching into North Africa, and one species in the USA. Only three of the described species occur in Europe: A. piceus, A. affinis, and A. muralis.
The anatomy of spiders includes many characteristics shared with other arachnids. These characteristics include bodies divided into two tagmata, eight jointed legs, no wings or antennae, the presence of chelicerae and pedipalps, simple eyes, and an exoskeleton, which is periodically shed.
Phidippus californicus is a species of jumping spider. It is found in the southwestern United States and northern Mexico.
Atypus affinis, the purseweb spider, is a common mygalomorph spider from Europe.
Atypus muralis is a mygalomorph spider from Central Europe to Turkmenistan. It is very similar to Atypus piceus, but the posterior spinnerets consist of four instead of three segments. They also build tubes that can be up to 1 m deep. Females grow to around 12 mm, while males grow to 9 mm.
Titanoeca quadriguttata is a species of spider in the family Titanoecidae. It is widespread in Europe, though absent from Great Britain, and is found in Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Corsica, Croatia, Czech Republic, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Liechtenstein, Moldova, Russia, Slovakia, Spain, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Ukraine.
Spiders are air-breathing arthropods that have eight legs, chelicerae with fangs generally able to inject venom, and spinnerets that extrude silk. They are the largest order of arachnids and rank seventh in total species diversity among all orders of organisms. Spiders are found worldwide on every continent except for Antarctica, and have become established in nearly every habitat with the exceptions of air and sea colonization. As of July 2019, at least 48,200 spider species, and 120 families have been recorded by taxonomists. However, there has been dissension within the scientific community as to how all these families should be classified, as evidenced by the over 20 different classifications that have been proposed since 1900.
This glossary describes the terms used in formal descriptions of spiders; where applicable these terms are used in describing other arachnids.
Agelena labyrinthica is a species of spider in the family Agelenidae.
Cyrtophora parangexanthematica is a species of tent spider found in the Philippines. Its scientific name comes from its close resemblance to double-tailed tent spiders. It was described from a single female specimen collected in 1995.
Oregonia bifurca, commonly known as the split-nose crab or the split-nose decorator crab, is a species of crabs belonging to the genus Oregonia. It is a rare deep-water species that inhabits the tops of seamounts and guyots in the northeastern Pacific Ocean; from the Aleutian Islands, the Bering Sea, the Hawaiian–Emperor seamount chain, to the waters off British Columbia. It is closely related to the more common shallow-water species Oregonia gracilis, the graceful decorator crab.
Progradungula otwayensis, commonly known as the odd-clawed spider, is a species of cribellate spider endemic to the Great Otway National Park of Victoria, Australia. It is one of only two species in the gradungulid genus Progradungula.
Seothyra, commonly known as the buckspoor spiders, buck spoor spiders or just spoor spiders, belong to a sand-dwelling, burrowing genus of araneomorph spiders in the family Eresidae. The 13 species are endemic to the arid, sandy flats and semistabilized red dunes of southern Africa. They are sexually dimorphic. The tiny males, which are seldom seen, imitate sugar ants or velvet ants in their appearance and habits, while the females hide in and hunt from their characteristic burrows. They are thermophilous, with males as well as females being most active on hot days.
Augacephalus is a genus of harpacterine theraphosid spiders. It has three species, all of which are found in Africa.
Chimerarachne is a genus of extinct arachnids containing a single species Chimerarachne yingi. Fossils of Chimerarachne were discovered in Burmese amber from Myanmar which dates to the mid-Cretaceous, about 100 million years ago. Its classification is disputed, either belonging to Uraraneida a group otherwise known from the Devonian to Permian, or a separate clade closer to spiders. Since the earliest spider fossils are from the Carboniferous, either answer results in an at least a 170 myr ghost lineage with no fossil record, making it a Lazarus taxon. The size of the animal is quite small, being only 2.5 mm in body length, with the tail being about 3mm in length. These fossils resemble spiders in having two of their key defining features: spinnerets for spinning silk, and a modified male organ on the pedipalp for transferring sperm. At the same time they retain a whip-like tail, rather like that of a whip scorpion and uraraneids. Chimerarachne is not ancestral to spiders, being much younger than the oldest spiders which are known from the Carboniferous, but it appears to be a late survivor of an extinct group which was probably very close to the origins of spiders. It suggests that there used to be spider-like animals with tails which lived alongside true spiders for at least 200 million years.
Halonoproctidae is a family of mygalomorph spiders, split off from the family Ctenizidae in 2018. Species in the family are widely distributed in North and Central America, Australasia, Asia, southern Europe and North Africa. One species is recorded from Venezuela in South America. They are relatively large, sombrely coloured spiders, that live in burrows with some kind of trapdoor.