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Crab Spider

Porropis sp (undescribed)

Description:

5mm. Round body with crab-like or salticid-like legs. If you are unsure of the identification there is mention of another similar spider on Find a Spider site http://www.findaspider.org.au/find/spide... There is still much disagreement about the species ID (see notes)

Habitat:

Only ever sighted on a vertical powder-coated steel fence in a coastal suburb

Notes:

This spider was first seen in 2009 and intended as a candidate for my website that recorded the variety of spiders living on a quarter acre suburban block by the sea. We were unable to identify it with enough certainty to place it on the site even with input from University of Southern Queensland. Thanks to ChunXingWong for that reassuring second opinion. There is still considerable disagreement about this identification. Ron Atkinson feels it may be another species of Tharpyna or closely related thomisid genus. Robert Whyte gives me an identification of Porropis sp. in an email dated 28 Oct 2013 and as the science is ever-changing and this is the latest attempt to give it an identity I have changed it again

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5 Comments

StephenSolomons
StephenSolomons 10 years ago

changed id

StephenSolomons
StephenSolomons 11 years ago

Thanks Chun Xing Wong. Because we were unable to find an image of this configuration in Google I have sent a copy of the image to "find-a-spider" and will place a copy in my own site when I rebuild over the next few weeks

ChunXingWong
ChunXingWong 11 years ago

Welcome. Difference in abdomen patterns among spiders of the same species can be caused by the difference of gender and age.
Sometimes great variation do occur in species like this Theridion grallator.
http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary...

StephenSolomons
StephenSolomons 11 years ago

Yes ChunXingWong I agree with you. The problem I had when I went researching this before is that the later spottings have much more complex abdomen designs and I have been wondering if this was another species but I think all three spottings are the same species. Thanks again for your time

ChunXingWong
ChunXingWong 11 years ago

I think this is also the same species as http://www.projectnoah.org/spottings/165...

StephenSolomons
Spotted by
StephenSolomons

New South Wales, Australia

Spotted on Nov 22, 2009
Submitted on Dec 10, 2012

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