An Overlooked Species of Enigmatic Wolf Spider (Araneae: Lycosidae) Clarifies the Mysterious Distribution of its Sibling

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  An Overlooked Species of Enigmatic Wolf Spider (Araneae: Lycosidae) Clarifies the Mysterious Distribution of its Sibling Abstract Several wolf spiders exhibit a peculiar geographical distribution. One good example of this is Pardosa aenigmatica Tongiorgi, 1966, recently recognized in Italy and the Middle East but missing in the Balkans. A comparison of populations from the disjunctive areas revealed that they would be better described as two distinct species. As a result, here we describe Pardosa sepidehae sp. nov. The paper includes detailed descriptions and comparative illustrations of male and female copulatory organs for the newly discovered species and P. aenigmatica. Pardosa sepidehae sp. nov. is distributed in the Middle East, whereas P. aenigmatica remains endemic to the Apennine Peninsula. Adile Akpinar, Petr Dolejš "An Overlooked Species of Enigmatic Wolf Spider (Araneae: Lycosidae) Clarifies the Mysterious Distribution of its Sibling," Annales Zoologici, 76(29), ...

Weathering the storm for love: Mate searching behaviour of wild males of the Sydney funnel-web spider (Atrax robustus)

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Weathering the storm for love: Mate searching behaviour of wild males of the Sydney funnel-web spider (Atrax robustus)

    Abstract

The risky business of mate-searching often leaves the actively searching sex facing threats and rapidly changing conditions. Yet, active mate-searching behaviour is rarely studied in invertebrates, and we have limited understanding of how mate-searching strategies have evolved to cope with risks posed by harsh weather. We investigated how mate-searching males move through their habitat and how their movement is affected by weather conditions in the Sydney funnel-web spider (Atrax robustus), one of the world's most venomous spiders. As is common in mygalomorphs spiders, females are functionally sessile, and are thought to spend their whole lives in a single burrow, whereas males must permanently abandon their burrows to mate during the breeding season. Nineteen male spiders were fitted with micro-radio transmitters and tracked during their mating seasons in 2020 (n = 2), 2021 (n = 8) and 2022 (n = 9) in Lane Cove National Park, in Sydney, Australia. Males moved at night, typically in a zig-zag pattern, and were found in new locations on approximately 50% of daily resighting's. Males often spent several days in a female's burrow, and some female burrows were visited by multiple males. When outside a female's burrow, males constructed and occupied temporary shelters ('temporacula'). Males were most likely to move and/or moved furthest when there was no rain, and on warm nights after cool days. Our findings suggest that mate-searching A. robustus males prefer to search for females in less risky conditions, revealing novel risk-minimizing strategies, especially in response to rainfall and temperature.


Weathering the storm for love: Mate searching behaviour of wild males of the Sydney funnel-web spider (Atrax robustus) Caitlin Nicole Creak, Hugo Muirhead, Russell Bonduriansky, Michael Kasumovic, Bruno Buzatto 

bioRxiv 2024.07.23.604707; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2024.07.23.604707