Antistea elegans

Anitistea elegans, the marsh combtail,[2] is a species of dwarf sheet web spider in the family Hahniidae which has a Palearctic distribution.[1]

Antistea elegans
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Arthropoda
Subphylum: Chelicerata
Class: Arachnida
Order: Araneae
Infraorder: Araneomorphae
Family: Hahniidae
Genus: Antistea
Species:
A. elegans
Binomial name
Antistea elegans
(Blackwall, 1841)[1]
Synonyms[1]
  • Agelena elegans Blackwall, 1841
  • Hahnia pratensis C. L. Koch, 1841
  • Hahnia elegans (Blackwall, 1841)
  • Hahnia propinqua Simon, 1875

Description

Antistea elegans are small spiders the males have a body length of 2.3-2.6mm, the females 2.5-4.3mm. Their most obvious feature is the arrangement of their spinners in a transverse row.[3] The prosoma is yellow-brown to reddish yellow, with dark spots while the opisthosoma is dark grey-brown with brighter patches.[4]

Biology

Antistea elegans constructs small sheet webs over depressions in wetland soil, normally underneath plants. The adults have been found mainly in late summer and autumn, although females have been recorded throughout the year.[5]

Habitat

In Great Britain Antistea elegans has been recorded from fens, marshes, upland blanket bogs, lowland raised bogs, seeps and woodland pool-sides. Specimens have been recorded from wet Sphagnum in Snowdonia National Park at 470m.[5] It has been recorded from similar wetland habitats in Germany.[6]

Distribution

Antistea elegans has a Palearctic distribution.[1] It is widespread in Great Britain[5] and Europe[6] as farwest as Ireland, south to Tunisia and east to Japan.[7]

gollark: But see, sometimes you just randomly ban or mute people.
gollark: I can see that?
gollark: The general thing is that we don't *need* much staffing to occur; while maybe I could help with events and such, there do not need to be bans frequently and we could probably get significant gains by *reducing* staff actions, specifically yours.
gollark: It was implied.
gollark: I have no idea. Hopefully ban you and stop you doing things.

References
  1. "Antistea elegans (Blackwall, 1841)". World Spider Catalog. Natural History Museum Bern. Retrieved 1 October 2016.
  2. "Antistea elegans". Stefan Sollfors. Retrieved 1 October 2016.
  3. "Spider of the Month - September". Professor Dave Curtis. Retrieved 1 October 2016.
  4. "Antistea elegans (Blackwall 1841)". Nentwig W, Blick T, Gloor D, Hänggi A, Kropf C: Spiders of Europe. www.araneae.unibe.ch. Retrieved 1 October 2016.
  5. "Summary for Antistea elegans (Araneae)". British Arachnological Society. Retrieved 1 October 2016.
  6. "Antistea elegans (BLACK WALL, 1841)". www.natur-in-nrw.de. Retrieved 1 October 2016.
  7. "Antistea elegans". British Arachnological Society. Retrieved 1 October 2016.
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.