Spelungula

The Nelson cave spider (Spelungula) is a monotypic genus of South Pacific large-clawed spiders containing the single species, Spelungula cavernicola. It was first described by Raymond Robert Forster, Norman I. Platnick, & Michael R. Gray in 1987,[2] and has only been found in caves in the northwestern part of New Zealand's South Island.[1][3]

Spelungula
Nelson cave spider, Oparara basin, Karamea, New Zealand
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Arthropoda
Subphylum: Chelicerata
Class: Arachnida
Order: Araneae
Infraorder: Araneomorphae
Family: Gradungulidae
Genus: Spelungula
Forster, 1987[1]
Species:
S. cavernicola
Binomial name
Spelungula cavernicola
Forster, 1987

It is one of the few spider species afforded legal protected under the New Zealand Wildlife Act.[4][5] It is classed as "Range Restricted" and stable in the New Zealand Threat Classification System.[6]

Etymology

The genus name is derived from "spelunca", which is latin for cave and is feminine in gender. The species name "cavernicola" refers to the species restriction to caves.[2]

Description

It is New Zealand's largest known spider, with a legspan of 13 to 15 centimetres (5.1 to 5.9 in) and a body length of 2.4 centimetres (0.94 in), and its main prey is cave weta.[7][8]

gollark: > we're talking about how regular people have no obligation to know what the fuck a word size isThey could probably ask someone who might know. Although they may not think of it.
gollark: and not just have a route for each.
gollark: Flask would look similar, but I would probably define it as:```pythonfunctions = { "get_thing": get_thing}serve_magically(functions)```
gollark: The devtools thing is nice I guess but minor.
gollark: You end up having to do extra work on each end to translate all the getThing, updateThing etc functions to and from the HTTP stuff.

See also

References
  1. Gloor, Daniel; Nentwig, Wolfgang; Blick, Theo; Kropf, Christian (2019). "Gen. Spelungula Forster, 1987". World Spider Catalog Version 20.0. Natural History Museum Bern. doi:10.24436/2. Retrieved 2019-06-07.
  2. Forster, R. R.; Platnick, N. I.; Gray, M. R. (1987). "A review of the spider superfamilies Hypochiloidea and Austrochiloidea (Araneae, Araneomorphae)". Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History. 185: 1–116.
  3. Sirvid, P. J.; Vink, C. J.; Wakelin, M. D.; Fitzgerald, B. M.; Hitchmough, R. A.; Stringer, I. A.N. (2012). "The conservation status of New Zealand Araneae". New Zealand Entomologist. 35 (2): 85–90. doi:10.1080/00779962.2012.686310. ISSN 0077-9962.
  4. Faulls, D. (1991). "Eight legs, two fangs and an attitude". New Zealand Geographic (10): 68–96.
  5. Wildlife Act - Schedule 7 Terrestrial and freshwater invertebrates declared to be animals
  6. Molloy, Janice; et al. (2002). "Classifying species according to threat of extinction. A system for New Zealand" (PDF). Department of Conservation (New Zealand). Retrieved 2008-02-29.
  7. McLachlan, Andrew. "Nelson cave spider". www.teara.govt.nz. New Zealand Ministry for Culture and Heritage Te Manatu. Retrieved 2016-05-29.
  8. "Topic: Nelson cave spider | Collections Online - Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa". collections.tepapa.govt.nz. Retrieved 2016-05-28.
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