Four Burrowing Lycosa (Geolycosa Montg., Scaptocosa Banks) Including One New Species

Psyche: A Journal of Entomology, Jul 2018

J. H. Emerton

A PDF file should load here. If you do not see its contents the file may be temporarily unavailable at the journal website or you do not have a PDF plug-in installed and enabled in your browser.

Alternatively, you can download the file locally and open with any standalone PDF reader:

http://downloads.hindawi.com/journals/psyche/1912/021076.pdf

Four Burrowing Lycosa (Geolycosa Montg., Scaptocosa Banks) Including One New Species

International Journal of , VOL. XIX. No. Z MONTG. NEW BY J. H. EMERTON Boston Mass. In PsYCH., Vol. 1877, S. H. Scudder described the burrowing spider of the Atlantic seacoast under the name Lycosa arenicola, which was preoccupied by Cambridge in the "Spiders of Dorset" in 1875. It was again described by George Marx in the American Naturalist in 1881 as Lycosa pikei. The upland species of a b Fig. 1. First and second legs; a, pikei, b, nidifex, c, missouriensis, d, wrightii. Pehe [April This group is distinguished, as mentioned by Banks in his description of Scaptocos in Journ. N. Y. Ent. Soc., 1904, by the absence, in females only, of spines on the upper side of tibia III and IV and by definite black markings on the under side of legs I nd II in both sexes. In pikei the black extends the whole length of legs I and II including the coxe. In nidifex it covers four terminal joints. In missouriensis it covers three terminal oints nd in wrightii three joints of leg I and two and part of the third of leg II. Fig 1. In this group the first leg is proportionally thicker in both sexes than in the other Lycoside. In the . males the first leg is three times at long as the cephalothorax in nidifex and wrightii and two and three-fourths times as long in missouriensis and pikei. In females it is two and a half times as long in nidifex, two and a quarter in wrightii, two and a fifth in pikei and twice in missouriensis. L. pikei lives in sandy country near the seashore from Maine. to New Jersey; L. nidifex along the eastern coast from Maine to Georgia and westward as far as Albany, N. Y., and Atlanta, Ga.; missouriensis along the Great Lakes in Ohio, Indiana and Illi,nois and south to Missouri and North Carolina; L. wrightii in sandy country along the Lakes from the eastern end of Lake Erie near Buffalo to Chicago, Ill.. and south to the middle of Illinois, along the Illinois River. In this group the burrowing habit is so far developed that, excepting adult males during the mating season, their whole life is passed mder ground or within a short distance of the mouth of the burrow. As soon as the young leave their mother they make burrows of their own proportioned to their size. The digging is done by covering the sand with silk enough to hold the grains together and it is then gathered into pellets of convenient size and carried in the mandibles to the mouth of the burrow, where lig. 8. Lycosa nidifex sitting in the mouth of its burrow. it is thrown outward by the ends of the front feet and on open sand the pellets may be seen in a circle of three or four inches the front half of the body.out over the edge of the hole and the radius around the hole. When watching for prey, they sit with legs turned under. Fig. They are sensitive to the slightest movements on the ground, and vhen down in their burrows will notice the walking of an insect within an inch or two of the hole and come quickly to the top. The movement of a straw on the surface will sometimes deceive them and bring them to the mouth of the hole. Zycosa nidifex digs often in sod and makes a "turret" around the mouth of the burrow, sometimes only a narrow ring of dead grass, but often rising an inch or more above the surface of the ground and covered with straw, chips or any fine, loose material within reach. When watching, the spider sits in the top of the turret. Fig. 8. L. missouriensis also habitually makes a turret, Z. pikei makes no turret except a slight ring .where there is much low or high, according to the material and surroundings. Fig 4. loose material blowing near the hole. Fig. In open sand it sometimes makes a flat collar of silk over the surface an inch wide around the hole. L. wrightii also prefers to dig in open sand and makes no turret or only a rudiment of one. L. nidifex matures in May, the other species in August and September. The males all die before winter. Both sexes of all the species pass the winter half grown. In nidifex they mature early enough to lay their eggs the next summer but the other species do not mature until late and the fertilized females live over a sec Emerton--Four [urrowing Lycosa ond winter and lay eggs in May or June. The burrows are not closed during the winter except as the weather accidentally flattens the lining around their mouths and makes .the opening smaller. The spiders remain torpid at the bottom, unhurt by the freezing of the soil around them Lycosa pikei Marx. Pl. 4, Figs. 1, la, lb, lc. The name arenicola was preoccupied by O. P. Cambridge in the "Spiders of Dorset," 1875. In Trans. Conn. Acad., 1885, I have confounded this species with L. nidifex and the description given there applies in part to both species. This mistake has been continued by T. H. Montgomery in Proc. Acad. Nat. Sci., Philadelphia, 1904, and by R. V. Chamberlin in Proc. Acad. Nat. Sci., Philadelphia, 1908. The differences between this species and nidifex are described in my supplement to N. E. Spiders, Trans. Conn. Acad., (...truncated)


This is a preview of a remote PDF: http://downloads.hindawi.com/journals/psyche/1912/021076.pdf

J. H. Emerton. Four Burrowing Lycosa (Geolycosa Montg., Scaptocosa Banks) Including One New Species, Psyche: A Journal of Entomology, 19, DOI: 10.1155/1912/21076