OCR Text |
Show 572 REV. O. P. CAMBRIDGE ON NEW ARANEIDEA. [June 19, PODOPHTHALMA DIVERSA, sp. n. (Plate LVII. fig. 9.) Immature female, length 6 lines. This Spider is nearly allied to P. incerta, Camb. The cephalothorax is broad, round, oval behind, greatly constricted laterally at the caput, which is rather produced and truncated in front. Although closely resembling in its form that of the typical Podophthalma, the cephalothorax is perhaps more nearly like that of Agelena and Textrix, with which genera there is no doubt an affinity, although in a linear arrangement these genera are removed at a great distance from Podophthalma (see introductory remarks, p. 558). The colour of the cephalothorax is yellow-brown, pretty thickly clothed with greyish-yellow pubescence. The eyes are in the same position as those of P. incerta. The exterior ones, however, of the foremost row are not so near to the exterior (lower) corners of the clypeus ; and the central pair of this row are distinctly (rather considerably,°in fact) smaller than the rest. In this Spider, as well as in the last, P. incerta, the ocular area, looked at in profile, is less flattened, and thus the eyes of the third row project more forwards. The legs are moderate in length and strength ; their relative length is 4, 1, 2, 3. They are of a pale yellow-brown colour, furnished with hairs, bristles, and slender spines; and each tarsus terminates with three curved claws, of which those of the superior pair are strong and pectinated, and the inferior one is small. The palpi are slender, of moderate length, and similar to the legs in colour and armature, terminating with a single, curved, pectinated claw. The falces are straight, perpendicular, moderate in length and strength, similar to the cephalothorax in colour, and furnished in front with numerous bristles. The maxillee and labium are of normal form; the former are dull pale yellow, and the latter is tinged with yellow-brown. The sternum is yellow-brown, darkest along the middle, of an oval heart-shape, and clothed with numerous erect bristly hairs. The abdomen is of an elongate-oval form, pretty densely clothed with gi«y and other hairs intermixed with some prominent dark bristly ones. It is of a yellowish-brown colour, with a broad central longitudinal band on the upperside, the margins indented, and each indentation marked conspicuously with a patch of white hairs, and joined to the corresponding indentation on the opposite side by a slightly curved line of similar hairs; these transverse curved white lines are most conspicuous on the hinder half. The sides are closely marked with parallel broken lines of dark-brown elongate spots ; and the underside is tinged with darker yellow-brown, which, however, is obscured by the clothing of short yellow-grey pubescent hairs. The spinners of the superior pair are rather longer than those of the inferior, though less strong. Several examples (all immature females) were collected by Mr. Henry Rogers, in Minas Geraes, Brazil. |