Coneweb spider

Diguetia canities

The Diguetidae are a family of Real spiders ( Araneomorphae ).

The ecribellate, haplogyne Diguetidae family contains 15 species in two genera Diguetia and Segestrioides. The family name Diguetidae, Nominatgenus Diguetia Simon (1895 ), has already been marked in 1899 by FO Pickard - Cambridge, but not adopted. The genus Diguetia with Perigops and Pertica was the Sicariidae then assigned. Gertsch's recent research ( 1949) revealed a classification of Diguetia in a family status, marital Diguetidae. His detailed study of 1958 allowed other researchers to identify other species. As the first and only discovery of Segestrioides bicolor Keyserling has disappeared, the classification of Segestrioides and the family status of Diguetidae could not be confirmed until a century later.

Morphological characteristics of the family

A special feature of this relatively primitive, occurring exclusively in America Real spiders is the lack of the rear, the second pair of breathing organs. Only the anterior book lungs present while the posterior tracheal completely absent; only the furrows on the sides of the abdomen of their respiratory openings are still available.

Diguetidae have six eyes, which are arranged in an almost straight line. The funds eyes are completely regressed. The genus Segestrioides has long been considered one of the most enigmatic taxa of Arachnologie at all. After Keyserling 1883 S. bicolor found in the Andes, the only preparation was lost in the 1930s or 1940s. Only a targeted expedition in 1988 again found animals on the original location, the basis of which the assignments of genus and family could be confirmed.

Gertsch assigned to this family that weaves both tubes such networks, the superfamily of Plectruroidea (primitive hunters and weavers = primitive hunters and Weber). Your dependents are different from the rest of Plectruroiden in particular by the number and position of the eyes and the construction of the male palp.

Diguetia Simon, 1895

Diguetia includes 11 species whose elongated body is densely covered with white hair, let the typical lines appear. You have quite a long, black striped legs. You pull into a 5-8 cm long, vertical and top gated tube back, which is woven like a bell of a trumpet in the center of an extensive mat of filaments. The opening is sealed with leaves, bark fragments or particles of soil and camouflaged, which are mostly collected from the immediate vicinity of the plant at which the net is attached. In this retreat the females integrate over each other their Eisäcke such as roof shingles.

The retreats are always very individual and, depending on region marked differences in color, texture and design. Diguetia species prefer bulky shrubs or cacti in arid climates strauchwüchsige and can be found there in the shrub layer of any vegetation. Main distribution area is Texas and Oklahoma to California and the far south of Mexico; so far a species has been found in Argentina.

Segestrioides Keyserling, 1883

The four species of the genus have an elongated and flattened forebody without feathery hair and a broad, deeply indented groove back, six eyes (which means eyes are regressed ) in three groups of two. The front body is mostly reddish to yellowish orange - gray. The chelicerae are close together at the base. In the palps are stridulating organs. The front body of the nominate S. bicolor is bright orange - red with a pair of black stripes, which are occupied with black setae. Sternum, mouth area and chelicerae are reddish orange.

The first and partially the second leg are reddish orange, the other legs are lighter. The leg formula is 1423rd The genus has tarsi with three claws. The upper jaws are covered with numerous small teeth in a slightly curved row; the lower jaw with a single tooth. The tarsus of the first leg of the male is bent sclerotized area, but not pseudosegmentiert. The elongated abdomen is highly arched with six spinnerets and a Collulus. The male gonopore is clearly curved. The abdomen is gray with brighter side drawing.

Segestrioides species live under rocks or stones and have little in common with its network builders relatives. Males and females live together without enmity.

Discovery and rediscovery of Segestrioides

The genus Segestrioides Keyserling long remained very puzzling since the first description of Segestrioides bicolor 1883. Keyserling was a single female in 3500 m altitude on the San Mateo in Peru and ordered it the family of Dysderidae to. This first and long the only preparation probably was lost in the 1930 1940s. The rest of the collection is now in the Polska Akademia Nauk, Warsaw, and the whereabouts of the missing specimen is not known; probably it is destroyed.

Meanwhile, the genus of several arachnologists was attributed to the Sicariidae, Scytodidae or Segestriidae solely on the description. In the north of Chile a few spiders was found that resembled the description of Keyserling's copy, but the family of Diguetidae have been assigned. Had also here because of the lost original instance, the relationships remain in the dark.

Only in 1988 broke an expedition under Dr. Frederick A. Coyle from Western Carolina University to Peru in order to look at the location of the original by spiders, because the finds in Chile fueled hopes that the type described there are still too could be found. The team found under boulders in a Eucalyptuswald in altitude of 3,100 m on the western flank of the San Mateo a sizable selection of juvenile animals, which could be identified as Segestrioides. After further finds from the genus in Peru (p. copiapo and S. tofo ) assigns Platnick 1989 Diguetidae to.

Swell

• Gertsch, Willis J. 1979: American Spiders, 2nd edition. Van Nostrand Reinhold, New York. ISBN 0-442-22649-7
• Norman I. Platnick 1989: A Revision of the Spider Genus Segestrioides (Araneae, Diguetidae ). American Museum Novitates. The American History Museum of Natural History ( AMNH ), New York, NY 10024 ( pdf) ISSN 0003-0082 (3.04 MB)
• Norman I. Platnick, 2006. The World Spider Catalog, version 6.5. American Museum of Natural History.

• True spiders
• Araneomorphae