Nephila komaci
| Nephila komaci | ||||||||||||
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Nephila komaci |
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| Scientific name | ||||||||||||
| Nephila komaci | ||||||||||||
| Kuntner & Coddington , 2009 |
Nephila komaci is a species of spider belonging to the genus of silk spiders . It was discovered in 2009 and is considered the largest known web-building spider in the world. So far only individual specimens of the species are known. They have been found in South Africa , Tanzania, and Madagascar . The specific epithet komaci was given in memory of Andrej Komac, a deceased colleague of Matjaž Kuntner, one of the two first descriptors .
Features and way of life
Female Nephila komaci are almost 4 centimeters long. Your legs will be up to three inches long. The legs of the female are banded black and red, the carapace is covered with thin white hairs. The males remain significantly smaller ( sexual dimorphism ). A specimen described by the discoverers was only 9 millimeters long. However, because of this considerable size, in the opinion of the first description, one cannot speak of " dwarf males " as with some other spider species , but rather of "giant females". The coloring of the males is less noticeable than that of the females.
Danger
The spider species is considered critically endangered because despite the size of the spider, explorers struggled to find live specimens. The search lasted several years after Kuntner saw the first specimen of the new species in 2000 at the Plant Protection Research Institute in Pretoria . It was not until 2003 that he discovered another specimen in the Natural History Museum in Vienna , which had been caught in Madagascar in 1938. This now serves as the holotype for the species. Later, further individuals were found in the Tembe Elephant Park in the border area between Mozambique and South Africa.
literature
- Matjaž Kuntner and Jonathan A. Coddington: Discovery of the Largest Orbweaving Spider Species: The Evolution of Gigantism in Nephila . PloS ONE, October 4, 10, 2009 online version
Web links
Nephila komaci in the World Spider Catalog
Individual evidence
- ^ Spiegel-Online: Biologists discover giant spider
- ^ Matjaž Kuntner and Jonathan A. Coddington: Discovery of the Largest Orbweaving Spider Species: The Evolution of Gigantism in Nephila Specialist article in the online magazine PloS ONE