A new species of the mygalomorph spider genus Euagrus Ausserer (Araneae: Euagridae) from central Mexico and new records of E. gus Coyle from Tlaxcala

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  A new species of the mygalomorph spider genus Euagrus Ausserer (Araneae: Euagridae) from central Mexico and new records of E. gus Coyle from Tlaxcala Abstract  A new species of the spider genus Euagrus Ausserer, 1875 from temperate pine-oak forests in the states of Tlaxcala and Hidalgo, Mexico is described: E. pulque sp. nov. The description of the new species is based on male and female adult specimens. Additionally, Euagrus gus Coyle, 1988 is recorded for the very first time in the state of Tlaxcala. These species have sympatric distributions in La Malinche National Park, Tlaxcala. With this description, the diversity of the genus increases to 23 species, with Mexico harboring the highest diversity with 17 described species.  Valdez-Mondragón, A., Salinas-Velasco, H. V. & Bueno-Villegas, J. (2026). A new species of the mygalomorph spider genus Euagrus Ausserer (Araneae: Euagridae) from central Mexico and new records of E. gus Coyle from Tlaxcala. Zootaxa 5810 (...

Stability of short-term boldness personality under nutritional and disturbance stress in a social spider

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By (c) @dineshphotography7797, some rights reserved (CC BY) - https://www.inaturalist.org/photos/245994740, CC BY 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=147097695

Stability of short-term boldness personality under nutritional and disturbance stress in a social spider

Abstract

Background

Consistent among-individual differences in behaviours, also known as animal personalities, are ubiquitous across the animal kingdom. At the same time, the expression of these behaviours may remain context- and time- dependent. Social spiders lack morphological castes and apparent dominant hierarchies, but show consistent among-individual differences in behaviours such as boldness and aggression. Previous studies have shown that these personality traits are not associated with task participation and that personality repeatability weakens over longer durations. In this study, we tested whether short-term boldness was stable across intrinsic (nutritional state) and extrinsic (disturbance) contexts in the Indian social spider, Stegodyphus sarasinorum. We subjected individuals to feeding or starvation and repeated disturbance or no disturbance treatments, and measured boldness over three consecutive days.

Results

We found that neither variation in nutritional state nor disturbance influenced the mean boldness scores or their repeatability. Our results show that boldness is robust to short-term changes in hunger and disturbance.

Conclusion

The ecological and social functions of the boldness personality trait remain unresolved in social spiders and further studies are warranted to understand how exactly among-individual variation in boldness influences colony productivity and demographic outcomes.

Parthasarathy, B., Friedrich, K. & Schneider, J.M. Stability of short-term boldness personality under nutritional and disturbance stress in a social spider. Front Zool (2026). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12983-026-00612-7