Hunting ecology predicts eye arrangements in the modular visual system of spiders

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  Hunting ecology predicts eye arrangements in the modular visual system of spiders Summary Vision is one of the most important senses used by animals and contributes to fundamental behaviors, including foraging, navigation, and mate detection and selection. 1 Although much is known about how eye position and orientation correlate to ecology in the context of binocularity, 2 animals with multipartite visual systems (more than two eyes) remain comparatively neglected. Spiders are highly successful predators that occupy a range of ecological niches and usually possess eight eyes. Here, we use three-dimensional geometric morphometrics and evolutionary modeling to test whether eye positions, orientations, and interocular angles correlate with hunting strategies in 52 species across the spider phylogeny. We demonstrate that eye configurations diversified from an ancestral medial cluster, as seen in modern trapdoor spiders, to a halo-like configuration in orb-weavers, and to the fronta...

Resurrection of the erigonine spider Ceratinopsis tybeensis (Araneae: Linyphiidae) with the first description of the male

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Resurrection of the erigonine spider Ceratinopsis tybeensis (Araneae: Linyphiidae) with the first description of the male

Abstract 

The erigonine linyphiid spider Ceratinopsis tybeensis Chamberlin & Ivie, 1944 was described from a single female collected in Savannah Beach, Georgia, USA. Subsequently, it was declared a junior synonym of Masonetta floridana (Ivie & Barrows, 1935) by Ivie (1967). However, recent multiple collections of females of M. floridana with specimens of an undescribed erigonine male has thrown this synonymy into question. Recent new research using morphological and molecular evidence supports our hypotheses that the synonymy proposed by Ivie is erroneous and the new male is the previously undescribed male of C. tybeensis. Herein, we resurrect C. tybeensis, provide the first description of the male, redescribe the female, and document increases to the known ranges of C. tybeensis and M. floridana. 

Milne, M. A. & Stahl, T. (2026). Resurrection of the erigonine spider Ceratinopsis tybeensis (Araneae: Linyphiidae) with the first description of the male. Arachnology 20(5): 744-748.