User:Macthethird/Arachnura

Arachnura commonly called the Scorpion spider, Tailed spider or the Drag-tailed spider, is a genus of orb-weaver spiders belonging to the family Araneidae and commonly located among Southern Australia and Eastern Asia, first described by A. Vinson in 1863.

Description
Females grow to a length of 1 to 3 centimeters long with males only reaching 2 millimeters in size. The coloring of female body's carapace is a pale brown with a brown medial line behind the posterior median eye. The thoracic region is marked with brown bands along the cervical groove with the remaining majority of the spider covered in dark shades of brown and black. Males possess a brown carapace with an inner pale yellow margin and a brownish yellow sternum with brown patching. The remainder is covered in dark browns with small brown spots located throughout the males abdomen. Juveniles have similar markings but their bodies are covered in lighter shades and colors until they mature and reach adulthood. The abdomen is elongated with two anterior lobes tapered to a long tail with a club like formation on the tip. Females possess this prominent tail that is comparable to a Scorpion's tail. Although they are not related, the female will also curl up their tail when threatened or disturbed, but are no threat to humans. The male does not possess this tail and is roughly 4.5 times smaller than the female in size. The reason for this dramatic size difference is still unknown by scientists.

Habitat
Arachnura build their web near ground level or on angled surfaces among lower branches of trees. The web is constructed as a sloping horizontal orb web with a missing segment. The female remains centered on their web motionless throughout day and night, her legs tucked in as to mimic plant debris (plant litter) in an attempt to disguise herself as dead leaves or fallen twigs. These webs are often built behind shrubs and bush lands with the target being small flying insects such as gnats and flies as the usual prey. Distribution among the Arachnura is clumped, with many spiders found in the same area coexisting together.

Behavior
The female lays up to eight egg sacks that are oval in shape, roughly 5 mm x 4 mm of strong silk and hold 50 to 60 0.8 mm size eggs in each egg sack. Sacks are stored among missing sections of the web where prey is not caught. The female often hides the eggs throughout these missing sections constructing a row of elongated eggs sacks. She covers them in plant debris in an effort to camouflage egg sacks and other parts of her web. The female Arachnura removes and replaces the spiral of the web designed for catching prey daily, but reuses the frame and its radial components for several days. These spiders often build their webs in dense areas populated with other Arachnuras in colony like style with studies often showing over 70 webs in contact. Although bites from both male and female will rarely occur, bites are comparable to the effects of a Mosquito. These include symptoms such as minimal swelling along with itchiness and local pain often taking a day or two to naturally settle.

Species
There are 12 species of Arachnura with the last discovered in 1983.


 * Arachnura angura Tikader, 1970- India
 * Arachnura feredayi L. Kock, 1872- New Zealand
 * Arachnura heptotubercula Yin, Hu and Wang, 1983- China
 * Arachnura higginsi L. Kock, 1872- Australia
 * Arachnura logio Yaginuma, 1956- China, Korea, Japan
 * Arachnura melanura Simon, 1867- India, Indonesia, Japan, Papua New Guinea, Australia
 * Arachnura perfissa Thorell, 1895- Myanmar
 * Arachnura pygmaea Thorell, 1890- Indonesia
 * Arachnura quinqueapicata Strand, 1911- Indonesia
 * Arachnura scorpionoides Vinson, 1863- Congo, Ethiopia, Seychelles, Mayotte, Madagascar, Mauritius, Réunion
 * Arachnura simoni Berland, 1924- New Caledonia
 * Arachnura spinosa Saito, 1933- Taiwan