Gasteracantha clavatrix

Gasteracantha clavatrix is a species of spider of the genus Gasteracantha. It occurs in Indonesia.[1]

Gasteracantha clavatrix
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Arthropoda
Subphylum: Chelicerata
Class: Arachnida
Order: Araneae
Infraorder: Araneomorphae
Family: Araneidae
Genus: Gasteracantha
Species:
G. clavatrix
Binomial name
Gasteracantha clavatrix
Synonyms

Plectana clavatrix, Gasteracantha claveata

Distribution

Gasteracantha clavatrix is known from Sulawesi.[2] Dahl reported a specimen from Lombok that he regarded as very similar,[3] and World Spider Catalog also includes Mentawai Islands Regency in the species' range.[1]

Description

Females of the species have six abdominal spines. The front and rear pairs are short and sharp; the middle spines are elongated and club-shaped, narrowing along their length and expanding at the end into a bulbous, hairy tip armed with a sharp conical point. These median spines are about as long as the abdomen is wide but may be slightly shorter or longer. The hard, shiny upper surface of the abdomen is white or yellow with dark sigilla and a black border along the anterior edge.[2][3][4]

In 1879, O. Pickard-Cambridge described a specimen from Sulawesi that he named Gasteracantha claveata on the basis of its longer, more dramatically shaped median spines and its apparent lack of a black anterior band on the upper surface of the abdomen, though he also wrote that the color was "no doubt much faded by the drying of the specimen."[4] Dahl wrote in 1914 that he believed the variation Pickard-Cambridge described was within the range of possible variation for the species and thus did not warrant species status, so Dahl synomized G. claveata with G. clavatrix.[3]

References
  1. "Gasteracantha clavatrix". World Spider Catalog. Retrieved 13 July 2019.
  2. Walckenaer, Charles Athanase (1841). Histoire naturelle des Insects. Aptères. Paris, France: Librairie encyclopédique de Roret. pp. 186–187. doi:10.5962/bhl.title.61095.
  3. Dahl, F. (1914). "Die Gasteracanthen des Berliner Zoologischen Museums und deren geographische Verbreitung". Mitteilungen aus dem Zoologischen Museum in Berlin. 7: 243–244.
  4. Pickard-Cambridge, O. (1879). "On some new and little known species of Araneidea, with remarks on the genus Gasteracantha". Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London. 47 (2): 289. doi:10.1111/j.1096-3642.1879.tb02656.x.
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