Avicularia
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| Lamarck , 1818 |
Avicularia is a genus from the family of spiders (Theraphosidae), which in Central and South America, is widespread. The genus currently includes only 12 species; up to 50 species were previously distinguished. (As of March 2017)
The name comes from the Latin adjective "avicularius", which means "bird-like" in German. The first species of tarantula was described by Carl von Linné in 1758 as Aranea avicularia (today: Avicularia avicularia ). This species was artistically recorded in an engraving by the German naturalist Maria Sibylla Merian as early as the 18th century .
features
The habitus of these spider species is adapted to the tree-dwelling way of life. They have dense hair pads on the broad tarsi, which look like light pink shoes at the tarsi ends in many species. All Avicularia species have stinging hairs on the abdomen ( opisthosoma ). Many males have apophyses on the tibia of the first pair of legs, rarely on the tibia of the first and second pair of legs ( Avicularia hirsuta ) or sometimes no apophyses ( Avicularia minatrix and Avicularia versicolor ). The front row of eyes is always prokurv.
The young animals of many Avicularia species have the typical Christmas tree pattern on the abdomen: red, blue, pink background with a black vertical stripe and some horizontal stripes. In the species Avicularia minatrix , however, the adult animals also have this pattern. Adults are about three ( Avicularia minatrix ) to nine centimeters ( Avicularia huriana ) tall. Many adult animals have longer whitish hairs on the palpitations, legs and abdomen.
behavior
Avicularia species are tree-dwelling tarantulas. They inhabit natural crevices and openings, leaf and branch axes, but also tree hollows built by other animals. These are lined with a web. Sometimes soil, leaves and branches are integrated into the web to camouflage it.
Since temperatures can rise to 40 degrees Celsius in their area of distribution, some animals move into the water-filled calyxes of the bromeliad plants, where the climatic conditions are better tolerable due to evaporation. Because the pineapple plantations are chemically treated, there are no animals there. Since the bromeliads die off after a year, the animals are forced to move.
The animals feed mainly on insects and smaller vertebrates that inhabit trees such as geckos , frogs and birds ( e.g. hummingbirds ).
The animals often defend themselves with their stinging hair covered abdomen. They stretch the abdomen of the alleged attacker. In many species, the females and males live in a common nest during the mating season and mate there several times.
Systematics
Most Avicularia species are native to the Central to South American continent up to about the 14th parallel. Few are in the Lesser Antilles , Central America or Mexico . A single species can occur in a vast range (for example from Guyana , along the Orinoco , through the Amazon to Ecuador and Peru) and coexist with other very similar species. Some species develop local subspecies and thus vary in size and color. This fact creates uncertainty in the systematic recording. On the other hand, some species that occur in a limited range such as islands, peninsulas or mountain forests can be identified very easily.
Additional systematic uncertainty resulted from the fact that Robert J. Raven listed the genus Eurypelma as a synonym for Avicularia in 1985 and that Norman Platnick therefore assigned all Eurypelma species in the World Spider Catalog to the genus Avicularia between 1989 and 2002 . Many of the earlier Eurypelma species were subsequently transferred into other genera (mainly the genus Aphonopelma ).
The most recent revision is from Fukushima and Bertani in 2017.
species
The World Spider Catalog currently lists only 12 species for the genus Avicularia . (As of March 2017)
- Avicularia avicularia ( Linnaeus , 1758)
- Avicularia caei Fukushima & Bertani , 2017
- Avicularia glauca Simon , 1891
- Avicularia hirschii Bullmer, Thierer-Lutz & Schmidt , 2006
- Avicularia juruensis Mello-Leitão , 1923
- Avicularia lynnae Fukushima & Bertani , 2017
- Avicularia merianae Fukushima & Bertani , 2017
- Avicularia minatrix Pocock , 1903
- Avicularia purpurea Kirk , 1990
- Avicularia rufa Schiapelli & Gerschman , 1945
- Avicularia taunayi ( Mello-Leitão , 1920)
- Avicularia variegata F. O. Pickard-Cambridge , 1896
- Transferred to other or new genres
- Avicularia affinis ( Nicolet , 1849) - Synonym of: Euathlus affinis ( Nicolet , 1849)
- Avicularia aymara ( Chamberlin , 1916) - synonym for: Thrixopelma aymara ( Chamberlin , 1916)
- Avicularia diversipes ( CL Koch , 1842) - Synonym of: Ybyrapora diversipes ( CL Koch , 1842)
- Avicularia gamba Bertani & Fukushima , 2009 - Synonym of: Ybyrapora gamba ( Bertani & Fukushima , 2009)
- Avicularia laeta ( CL Koch , 1842) - Synonym of: Caribena laeta ( CL Koch , 1842)
- Avicularia rickwesti Bertani & Huff , 2013 - Synonym of: Antillena rickwesti ( Bertani & Huff , 2013)
- Avicularia sooretama Bertani & Fukushima , 2009 - Synonym of: Ybyrapora sooretama ( Bertani & Fukushima , 2009)
- Avicularia subvulpina beach , 1906 - Synonym of: Grammostola subvulpina ( beach , 1906)
- Avicularia versicolor ( Walckenaer , 1837) - synonym of: Caribena versicolor ( Walckenaer , 1837)
- In the German language Wikipedia still common noun dubia
- Avicularia aurantiaca Bauer , 1996
- Avicularia braunshauseni Tesmoingt , 1999
- Avicularia geroldi Tesmoingt , 1999
- Avicularia huriana Tesmoingt , 1996
- Avicularia metallica Ausserer , 1875
literature
- B. Striffler: The Martinique tree tarantula (Avicularia versicolor) + Avicularia minatrix, A. purpurea & A. laeta. Natur und Tier Verlag, Münster 2004, ISBN 978-3-937285-42-9
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c Natural History Museum of the Burgergemeinde Bern: World Spider Catalog Version 18.0 - Avicularia . Retrieved March 14, 2017.
- ↑ a b c Fukushima, CS & Bertani, R. (2017): Taxonomic revision and cladistic analysis of Avicularia Lamarck, 1818 (Araneae, Theraphosidae, Aviculariinae) with description of three new aviculariine genera. ZooKeys, 659, pp. 1-185.
- ↑ a b c d e Peter Klaas: tarantulas / origin, care, species , Eugen Ulmer KG, Stuttgart 2003, 2007, ISBN 978-3-8001-4660-4 , pp. 63–67
- ^ A b c Günther Schmidt: Die Vogelspinnen , Westarp Wissenschaften-Verlagsgesellschaft mbH, Hohenwarsleben 2003, ISBN 3-89432-899-1 , p. 38 and p. 197–202
- ^ Raven, R. J: The spider infraorder Mygalomorphae (Araneae): Cladistics and systematics. Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History 1985, 182, pp. 1-180.
- ↑ Natural History Museum of the Burgergemeinde Bern: World Spider Catalog Version 17.0 - Aphonopelma . Retrieved April 24, 2016.
Web links
Avicularia in the World Spider Catalog
- German Arachnological Society V. (DeArGe) - German association that promotes arachnology and takes care of the transmission of information in this field (publication organ : ARACHNE - ISSN 1613-2688 )
- Tarantula e. V. - German association that wants to expand and deepen arachnology and the general level of knowledge and knowledge exchange in this field.