Harvesting Ants and Trap-Door Spiders: Notes and Observations on Their Habits and DwellingsMoggridge, John Traherne
Science
Harvesting Ants and Trap-Door Spiders: Notes and Observations on Their Habits and Dwellings
Moggridge, John Traherne
Ants; Trap-door spiders
Since the above description of the female of this species was
written, an example of the adult male has been most opportunely
discovered. It is much smaller than the female, its length being
only six lines. The _Cephalothorax_ is of an uniform clear
yellow-brown colour, tinged with orange, and thinly clothed with
a greyish pubescence: the oblique indentations marking the union
of the cephalic and thoracic segments are indicated by a strongish
black-brown band on either side, which becomes obsolete as each
approaches the other near the central curved indentation; there
are also two or three converging suffused blackish stripes on the
hinder slope. The relative length of the _Legs_ is the same in both
sexes, 4, 1, 2, 3, but in the male those of the fourth are longer
in proportion to those of the third pair than in the female; the
spines also on the legs are more numerous and stronger, the upper
sides of the femora of all the legs are deeply suffused with black,
while in the female this suffusion is not nearly of so marked a
character, though the genua of the different females examined
had a strong brown-black macula on the outer side of each, while
the corresponding maculæ in the single male examined were but
just visible; the three spines observed on the outer side of the
genua of the third pair of legs in the female are of even a more
marked character in the male, and hence they may be considered a
good and tangible specific difference from other nearly allied
species; the tibiæ of the first pair are considerably enlarged on
the under side at the fore extremity, where each is armed with
a single, longish, strong, slightly curved, pointed black spine
directed forwards (fig. _a_, 3). The _Abdomen_ is small and of an
oval form; its colours and markings resemble those of the female,
but on the hinder half of the upper side two or three indistinctly
traced pale angular bars or chevrons are formed by the distribution
of the black-brown colours and markings; the under side of the
abdomen is of a uniform pale whitish yellow, except the spiracular
plates, which are yellow-brown. The _Palpi_ are moderately long
and strong; the radial joint is longer than the cubital, and is of
a tumid and somewhat oval form, suffused over most of its surface
with dark brown, the rest of the palpus being of a yellowish-brown
colour; the digital joint is small and somewhat oblong-oval, curved
downwards, and very slightly concave on its inside; the palpal
organs consist of a nearly globular, basal, corneous bulb prolonged
into a strongish, curved, but not very long, pear-stem form, the
stem being distinctly cleft or bifid at its extreme point (_vide_
figs. _a_ 1, and _a_ 2), one portion of the bifid part is larger
than the other, though both are equal in length, and the stem of
the palpal bulb is directed transversely outwards, almost at right
angles with the digital joint.
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