Species Pisaurina mira - Nursery Web Spider

Classification · Identification · Print References · Internet References

Nursery Spider feeding on a Longlegged Fly - Pisaurina mira

Nursery Web Spider (Pisaurina mira) - feeding behavior - Pisaurina mira - male

Pisauridae: Pisaurina mira - Pisaurina mira - female

Classification

Kingdom Animalia (Animals)

Phylum Arthropoda (Arthropods)

Class Arachnida (Arachnids)

Order Araneae (Spiders)

Infraorder Araneomorphae (True Spiders)

No Taxon (Entelegynes )

Family Pisauridae (Nursery Web Spiders)

Genus Pisaurina

Species mira (Nursery Web Spider)

Identification

The nearly straight anterior row of eyes clearly distinguishes this species from P. undulata and P. dubia which have strongly recurved anterior rows. (1)

According to James Curico (1) there are six variation of P. mira. Here is my attempt to attach a photo to each of his six drawings in the reference below. Images 1-5 are for females, 6 is for the male.

#1 & 2 - Typical (I don't see much difference here)

#3 Broken pattern (this was on a very large specimen)

#4 Spotted Pattern (also a very large specimen, almost no pattern visible)

#5 Center Line Pattern

#6 Typical Male

#7 Spiderling

Print References

(1) psyche.entclub.org - (PDF) The Nearctic Spider Genus Pisaurina by James Carico.

Internet References

Animal Diversity Web - University of Michigan

Contributed by Troy Bartlett on 22 March, 2004 - 11:20pm
Additional contributions by Hannah Nendick-Mason, Lynette, kschnei
Last updated 10 December, 2011 - 11:26am

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