OCR Text |
Show 1879.] SPIDERS FROM NEW* ZEALAND. 701 Fam. EPISINIDES. Genus EPISINUS. EPISINUS ANTIPODIANUS, sp. n. (Plate LIII. fig. 16.) The length of the adult female is 2\ lines. This Spider is nearly allied to Episinus truncatus, Walck.. but may easily be distinguished by its shorter and distinctly annulated legs, and by a difference of pattern on the cephalothorax and abdomen. The form of those parts is, however, very similar in both species, as also are the relative size and position of the eyes. The ocular area, however, is a little more projecting in the present Spider. The colour of the cephalothorax is dark yellow-brown, the margins and a patch on each side, near the junctional line of the caput, being pale dull yellowish. The legs are dull yellowish, distinctly annulated with dark brown, the broadest and darkest annuli being at the extremities of the femora and tibiee. Their relative length is 4, 1, 2, 3 ; and they are furnished with hairs, a slender spine on the genua, and two on "each of the tibiae. The sternum is dark blackish brown, with a small, pale, dull-coloured patch at the middle of the anterior extremity. The abdomen is yellow-brown, mottled and marked with darker brown, blackish, dull yellowish, and white points. A tolerably regular pattern may be traced, formed by slender angular whitish lines, the vertices of the angles directed forwards ; the two longest of these lines start from the conically-prominent posterior angles of the upper-side of the abdomen, and meet in an acute angle towards the fore extremity; two shorter ones also proceed from the same parts, and meet much further back in a more obtuse angle, within which is a black triangular patch enclosed by a whitish basal line ; the four lines above mentioned form a large triangular figure, within which, in a transverse line, are two impressed red-brown spots margined with pale yellowish. Along the middle of the underside is a broad brownish band, marked along the middle with pale yellowish brown, and mar gined on the sides and behind with a pale continuous stripe ; and the sides, beneath the angular prominences, are strongly and conspicuously marked with black. The form of the genital aperture is characteristic and quite different from that of Episinus truncatus. Received from the west coast of Otago, where it was found by Captain F. W . Hutton. The occurrence of an undoubted Episinus in N e w Zealand is very interesting, and appears to me to give us a pretty certain clue to the true affinities of this genus. In ' Spiders of Dorset,' p. 80, I have alluded to the resemblance of Episinus to some species of the Australian genus Stephanopis, Cambr., and observed that though in South America Episinus occurs in company with Spiders intermediate between it and Stephanopis, it had not yet been recorded from Australia. The occurrence now, however, of Episinus in a region |