Portia (genus)
| Portia | ||||||||||
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Portia fimbriata , male |
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| Scientific name | ||||||||||
| Portia | ||||||||||
| Karsch , 1878 |
Portia is a genus of jumping spiders that feed on other spiders. They are characterized by their hunting behavior, which suggests the ability to learn and solve problems - properties that are usually granted to much larger living beings.
features
The animals are 4.5 to 9.5 mm in size. The sexes are similar, but slight gender dimorphism occasionally occurs . The animals are mainly colored in different shades of brown.
distribution
The genus Portia is common in tropical Africa and the south of the Palearctic . The species can be found in Africa, Australia , China , Malaysia , Myanmar , Nepal , India , Sri Lanka , the Philippines and Vietnam .
Hunting techniques
The hunting of Portia species often appears intelligent. Their preferred prey are spiders between 10 and 200% of their own size. Portia species often look like leaves caught in a web, often to fool short-sighted spiders. When ambushing spiders, they try to generate different vibration patterns in order to simulate wriggling insects trapped in the web or the courtship of a male spider. They repeat any patterns that cause the prey spider to come closer. Portia fimbriata was observed generating vibrations for three days until the victim responded and came closer. They match penetration into the enemy net with light breezes that blur the vibrations of their approach, and they back away when the planned prey reacts aggressively. A retreating spider of the genus Portia can make another attempt by abseiling off overhanging branches or stones and killing its prey. It can take detours despite the loss of direct visual contact with the prey.
species
The genus Portia belongs to the subfamily of the Spartaeinae. 17 species have been described (as of May 2010):
- Portia africana ( Simon , 1886) - West and Central Africa
- Portia albimana (Simon, 1900) - India to Vietnam
- Portia assamensis Wanless , 1978 - India to Malaysia
- Portia crassipalpis (Peckham & Peckham, 1907) - Singapore , Borneo
- Portia fimbriata (Doleschall, 1859) - Nepal , Sri Lanka , Taiwan to Australia
- Portia heteroidea Xie & Yin, 1991 - China
- Portia hoggi ( Zabka ), 1985 - Vietnam
- Portia jianfeng Song & Zhu, 1998 - China
- Portia labiata (Thorell, 1887) - Sri Lanka to Philippines
- Portia orientalis Murphy & Murphy, 1983 - Hong Kong
- Portia quei Zabka, 1985 - China, Vietnam
- Portia schultzi Karsch, 1878 - Central, East and South Africa , Madagascar
- Portia songi Tang & Yang, 1997 - China
- Portia strandi Caporiacco, 1941 - Ethiopia
- Portia taiwanica Zhang & Li, 2005 - Taiwan
- Portia wui Peng & Li, 2002 - China
- Portia zhaoi Peng, Li & Chen, 2003 - China
Web links
Portia in the World Spider Catalog
Individual evidence
- ^ Ross Piper: Extraordinary Animals: An Encyclopedia of Curious and Unusual Animals . Greenwood Press, 2007
- ↑ Wanless, FR: A revision of the spider genus Portia (Araneae: Salticidae), Bulletin of the British Museum of Natural History, Zoology 34 (3): 83-124, 1978 http://peckhamia.com/library/Wanless% 201978% 20A% 20revision% 20of% 20the% 20spider% 20genus% 20Portia.pdf
- ↑ a b D. P. Harland and RR Jackson: "Eight-legged cats" and how they see - a review of recent research on jumping spiders (Araneae: Salticidae) in: Cimbebasia, issue 16, pp. 231-240, 2000 PDF ( Memento of the original dated September 28, 2006 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (English)
- ↑ a b S. Wilcox and R. Jackson: Jumping Spider Tricksters in: The Cognitive Animal: Empirical and Theoretical Perspectives on Animal Cognition , Bekoff, M., Allen, C., and Burghardt, GM, MIT Press, 2002 ISBN 0- 2625-2322-1
- ↑ Galina N. Azarkina and Dmitri V. Logunov: New data on the jumping spiders of the subfamily Spartaeinae (Araneae: Salticidae) from Africa. African Invertebrates, 51, 1, pp. 163-182, Pietermaritzburg, May 2010, p. 181
