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Tara? cf anomala (Keyserling, 1882) Ergane? cf cognata L Koch, 1881 Scorpion Mimic

Body length males 3.2mm interesting for a number of features: small size, habitus and behaviour very scorpion like, extreme flatness, bulging femurs leg I, extremely strong-looking "crone-finger" fangs, with bumps and scoops, rather like Ergane cognata, or Tara anomala two slender and pointy apophysis protruberances, one dark, one light, stout pairs of ventral spines tibia and metatarsus, white egg-like shapes in base of palp which is otherwise fairly simple and not greatly unlike Tara anomala, short dark curved embolus. As for teeth, apparently fissident. Val Davies and Marek Zabka remarked that there were some undescribed females and males of a small, flat spider, usually shaken from foliage (as these on this page were) with a similar male palp to that of Tara anomala but without such elongate coxa and trochanter (as is also the case here).

Male adult 11808MottCk from above


Tara?
Photo: Robert Whyte

Male adult 11808MottCk from above


Tara?
Photo: Robert Whyte

Male adult 11808MottCk side view


Tara?
Photo: Robert Whyte

Male adult 11808MottCk from above closeup


Tara?
Photo: Robert Whyte

Male adult 11808MottCk facing


Tara?
Photo: Robert Whyte

Male adult 11808MottCk from below shopwing fangs


Tara?
Photo: Robert Whyte

Male adult 11808MottCk facing showing fangs


Tara?
Photo: Robert Whyte

Male adult 11808MottCk from below


Tara?
Photo: Robert Whyte

Male adult 11808MottCk palp showing egg shapes and apophysis


Tara?
Photo: Robert Whyte

Male adult 11808MottCk palp from other side


Tara?
Photo: Robert Whyte

Male adult 11808MottCk palp side on


Tara?
Photo: Robert Whyte

Male 9810@Lochinvar from above


Tara?
Photo: Robert Whyte

Male 9810@Lochinvar facing


Tara?
Photo: Robert Whyte

Male 9810@Lochinvar palp facing (ventral)


Tara?
Photo: Robert Whyte

Male 9810@Lochinvar palp outside (dorsal)


Tara?
Photo: Robert Whyte

Male 9810@Lochinvar palp outside (dorsal) apophysis


Tara?
Photo: Robert Whyte

Male 9810@Lochinvar palp underneath (ventral)


Tara?
Photo: Robert Whyte

Female from above

This very small Salticid is very flat in the nature of the flat jumping spiders, Holoplatys species. The abdomen is deflated in death, but the spider was found this way, or very close to it, so this older female may have died of natural causes. Body length nearly 2mm. It was collected in Jevons Street Park, Enoggera catchment.

Holoplatys sp?
Adult female. Body length 1.8mm. The golden light on the silvery cephalothorax is reflected from the light source. Photo: Robert Whyte

Female from below, epigynum visible


Holoplatys sp?
Photo: Robert Whyte

Female Myrtle Creek, NSW from above


Tara? Ergane?
Photo: Martin Stevens

 

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