Ummidia algarve

Ummidia algarve is a spider species found in Portugal.[1] Unlike other known Ummidia species, it creates a trapdoor at the entrance of the burrow.[2]

Ummidia algarve
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Arthropoda
Subphylum: Chelicerata
Class: Arachnida
Order: Araneae
Infraorder: Mygalomorphae
Family: Halonoproctidae
Genus: Ummidia
Species:
U. algarve
Binomial name
Ummidia algarve
Decae, 2010[1]

Taxonomy and etymology

U. algarve was misidentified by three authors, (O. Pickard-Cambridge (1908), Frade & Amelia Bacelar (1931) and Bacelar again (1937)), before Arthur Decae gave it its present (August, 2016) name, Ummidia algarve.[1]

Its specific name means "of Algarve", the region and Moorish medieval kingdom in South Portugal it was found in. The geographically inspired name was chosen because ctenizids are often endemic to certain specific regions.[2]

Biology

Ummidia algarve is very common in Algarve, often in close association with nemesiid spiders. It has a burrow structure unique to the species (other than Conothele varvarti in India): a trapdoor at the entrance of the burrow and an inverted trapdoor near the bottom of the burrow. Females might be the only ones to do this. All other known Ummidia species have no internal structures other than the silk lining of the burrow.[2]

Description

Female Ummidia algarve have short, straight, "mushroom-shaped" spermathecae and a warty texture to the abdominal cuticle. These warts are the individual sockets of bristles on the abdomen. The cephalothorax is smooth and shining. The chelicerae are large and dorsally black (ventrally orange-brown), with the fang serrated on the inner ridge. The cephalic area is smoothly elevated. The ocelli are arranged in two rows, near the anterior edge of the cephalothorax, set compactly around a small ocular process, the anterior row is strongly procurved and the posterior row is slightly recurved. Its total body length is 14.5 mm.

Males have a relatively short, strong and smoothly curved embolus with a subapical fishhook tooth and low ocular quadrangle ratio. The cephalothorax is black with shades of red; it is also granulated. The opisthosoma is warty as in the female. The chelicerae are black dorsally and ventrally orange-brown.[2]

gollark: Lots of things are "possibly good systems". They should probably be demoted in the rankings after repeated failures.
gollark: When they were tested at scale we were pretty sure they wouldn't be particularly harmful.
gollark: I actually don't want multiple things.
gollark: Scientific progress does not generally require subjecting lots of people to your thing for ages.
gollark: If you have to go through 10000 extremely bad systems to get a good one, it may not be worth it.

References
  1. Ummidia algarve Decae, 2010. World Spider Catalog. NMBE. Retrieved August, 2016
  2. Decae, A. E. (2010). The genus Ummidia Thorell 1875 in the western Mediterranean, a review (Araneae: Mygalomorphae: Ctenizidae). Journal of Arachnology 38: 328-340.


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