Venatrix pictiventris

Four-spotted Huntress at Four Winds

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Identification history

Tasmanicosa sp.	3 Dec 2016	Harrisi
Tasmanicosa sp.	2 Dec 2016	PatriciaDaly
Tasmanicosa sp.	28 Nov 2016	PatriciaDaly

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User's notes

1 with young on back. Peacock Spider survey around the grounds of Four Winds.

6 comments

JackieMiles wrote:

6 Sep 2017

This spider doesn't have the "union jack" pattern of radiating lines on the back that all Tasmanicosa are supposed to have (Whyte and Anderson, p. 176) so maybe it needs to be reclassified.

PaulWhitington wrote:

6 Sep 2017

I agree that it doesn't fit the criterion for Tasmanicosa, Jackie. Both the Whyte and Anderson book and the Arachne.org site are quite evasive when it comes to identification of most of the Lycosidae. I suspect that Volker Framenau has got Robert Whyte spooked! Anyway, this spider looks very similar to a Venatrix sp. on Arachne.org (http://arachne.org.au/01_cms/details.asp?ID=1163). We've seen a very similar female with spiderlings here. So I'm happy to call it that.

PaulWhitington wrote:

6 Sep 2017

Now that I've looked at Framenau and Vink's 2001 revision of Venatrix, I'd like to retract my comment about Robert Whyte being spooked! He is being justifiably cautious. Definitive separation of Venatrix from other lycosid genera requires examination of male fangs and pedipalps.

JackieMiles wrote:

7 Sep 2017

So in that case should we be leaving it iust as Lycosidae, which I think is in there as a category?

PaulWhitington wrote:

7 Sep 2017

Yes, I think that might be the safest thing to do at this stage. I'm currently working my way through recent revisions of the various Lycosidae genera. I'm hoping that we'll be able to decide on species IDs of Lycosidae posted on the site using a combination of spider size, known distribution, habitat and morphology as seen with the naked eye (i.e. NOT male pedipalp and female epigyne morphology). Will let you know.

PaulWhitington wrote:

12 Sep 2017

Having read Volker Framenau and Cor Vink's 2001 revision of the genus Venatrix (Invertebrate Taxonomy 15, 927-970) and viewed images of the species on Framenau's Flickr pages, I'm confident of the ID of the spider in this sighting.

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