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 _cephalothorax_ is oval, broadest towards its posterior
extremity, where it is rounded, the fore-margin being truncated; the
caput is well rounded and convex, and the thorax perhaps more so
than in other species, so that when looked at in profile there is a
considerable dip or hollow at the thoracic fovea; this fovea forms a
slight curve. Except that the lateral margins are rather broadly pale
towards the hinder part (though the pale portion is ill-defined),
the whole of the cephalothorax is of a uniform dull yellowish-brown
colour; the extreme lateral margin is marked by a black line, and
in one or two examples there was an indistinct yellowish central
longitudinal line from the eyes to the thoracic junction, having a
single row of prominent bristles upon it. The whole surface of the
cephalothorax is fairly clothed with dusky yellowish-grey adpressed
hairs: the ordinary grooves and indentations are well marked.
The _eyes_ are on the usual eye eminence, which is perhaps rather
more elevated than ordinary, and its summit black; their position
is ordinary. It may, however, be noticed that the fore-centrals are
placed more forward than in most of the other known species; the
fore-centrals are about _equally_ separated from each other, and
from the fore-laterals nearest to each respectively; they are also
separated from the hind-central nearest to each, by an interval
not differing much from that between each other; the hind-centrals
are distinctly oval, or rather somewhat semilunar in form, smallest
of the eight (except in one example, when they were almost, if not
quite, as large as the fore-centrals), and at their hindermost point
very near, but not quite contiguous, to the hind-laterals. The eyes
of each lateral pair (of which the hinder is very nearly equal in
size to the fore one), are very near, but not quite contiguous, to
each other; the interval between them is narrower than that between
the corresponding eyes in almost any other yet described species.
The _legs_ are neither long nor very strong; their relative length is
4, 1, 2, 3, though between 2 and 3 there is in different examples the
same variation observed in other species; sometimes they are equal,
and sometimes one, and then the other, very slightly the longest:
their colour is pale yellowish, and they are furnished with hairs,
bristles, and spines, but the latter are not numerous, and appeared
to be both longer and slenderer than usual; the genual joints of the
third pair have spines, from one to three on the outer side, for the
most part, three; the superior tarsal claws are pectinated (but not
uniformly on all the legs) beneath their hinder portion.
The _falces_ are strong, and similar in colour to the cephalothorax,
but they do not appear to call for any special remark.
The _maxillæ_ have a few minute tuberculiform black teeth at their
base on the inner side, and, with the _labium_ (which has no hairs at
its apex) and _sternum_, are similar in colour to the legs.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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