Supplement to Harvesting Ants and Trap-Door SpidersMoggridge, John Traherne
Science
Supplement to Harvesting Ants and Trap-Door Spiders
Moggridge, John Traherne
Ants; Trap-door spiders
The _abdomen_ is broadish oval, of a dull clay colour, marked with
dark brown lines, and markings on the sides and upper side. In
some examples these form a longitudinal central series of curved
or slightly angular lines; in others but little trace of regular
chevrons can be seen.
In the present spider there is also a longitudinal pale yellowish
patch on the inner upper margin of the falces near their base; they
are furnished with hairs in longitudinal bands, and spines, like
others of the genus.
The _legs_ are moderately long, strong, and furnished with hairs and
bristles, and, sparingly, with spines. The genual joints of the third
pair have some spines on the outer side, varying from one to three in
different examples. The tarsi and metatarsi of the first and second
pairs, as well as the radial and digital joints of the palpi, have
strong lateral brush-like fringes of close-set sooty black hairs. The
superior pair of tarsal claws are denticulated, but not uniformly
either in strength, number, or position.
No doubt this will prove a very troublesome spider to distinguish
with certainty from _N. cæmentaria_, but the almost constant presence
of a spine or spines on the outer face of the genual joint of the
third pair of legs seems to be a good distinguishing character; in
no one example out of nine carefully examined could I detect their
absence altogether, while a single spine even on _N. cæmentaria_ is
rare.
In the present species five examples had three spines on each of
these joints; two had two spines on each; one had a single spine on
each; another had one on one side, two on the other.
The nest, however, is very characteristic and peculiar. It is of the
wafer-lid type, and so cannot, from even the outside, be mistaken
for that of _N. cæmentaria_, which is of the cork-lid type; it is,
moreover, branched below, while that of _N. cæmentaria_ is a single
unbranched tube. It has also an inside door, or valve, of very
remarkable construction, having two perfect cork-like faces, securely
shutting off either the branch, or the main tube just above the
branch, at pleasure. By this latter character it is distinguished
also from the tube of _N. Manderstjernæ_, as well as by the absence
of a second short branch or cavity, lately discovered in the nest
of this last spider. Examples of this spider were found, not
unfrequently, but invariably in such nests as that above described,
at Hyères.
The female sex only has yet been met with.
_Habitat._ Hyères.
Nemesia Suffusa, sp. n., Plate XVII., fig. A, p. 215.
Immature female, length 7-1/2 lines (15-1/2 mm.).
Although no example was quite adult, this species may readily be
distinguished from all others yet known to me, by its more elongated
form, particularly the cylindrico-ovate form of the abdomen.
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