Hi, Sharon and Bill,

Did you by any chance save this specimen?

-K

Any chance of getting a closer view here of the pedipalp?

-Kevin

I just release them. If I ever run across one of these guys again I'll let you know.

for catching my error. They look so similiar. I have never heard of this spider before and can't find a lot of photos of it online. I will move this to Miturgidae until someone is positive of Strotarchus. Unless your ID is positive? It's possible that other photos in Cheiracanthium should be moved.

I was going by the keys in Spiders of North America, and if this spider is Miturgidae, then Strotarchus looks like the right genus because what I can see in the picture seems to indicate it, according to the key: "carapace concolorous, PER straight to slightly procurved ... legs relatively long and slender ... fovea present, claw tufts weakly developed ..."

The only thing that doesn't seem to match is the cymbium on the male palp, which is supposed to have a longish, slender tip in Strotarchus, which I can't see well enough in your pictures to tell.

I'm not sure if any of the other photos in Cheiracanthium are in the wrong place. Anything with an obvious fovea would be. I haven't looked, though.

Hi, John-

The only problem, for me, is that this looks exactly like a Cheiracanthium mildei pedipalp (as best one can see). I was ready to buy your theory until I saw Edwards's (1958) drawing of the Strotarchus palp. He also writes that the AMEs are closer to the laterals than to each other, which doesn't seem to be the case here. There does seem to be a fovea present, but at the same time, look at the length of leg pair I -- which supports your case. If not Strotarchus (and I'm not yet ready to say that), then a Clubiona?

-K

Hi, John-

I've looked again at the palp here, blown up to 200% and must say that although not all details are clearly visible, it's a real close match to Cheiracanthium mildei. And in the Strocharcus description and drawings I see no mention of a dorsal apophysis on the pedipalp and the length of the cymbium is just not there.

I looked at Dondale & Redner (1982), once more, and in distinguishing Cheiracanthium they write "dorsal groove shallow, pale, inconspicuous". Note that they don't say absent. On the other hand, the dorsal groove seems anything but inconspicuous here; however, Jørgen Lissner (Spiders of Europe and Greenland) does show a C. mildei specimen with a rather similar carapace (though full of grey hairs): http://www.jorgenlissner.dk/images/Pictures/Cheiracanthium_mildei_han_2971.jpg

I also compared leg I measurements for Strocharchus piscatorius with this specimen, scaling the leg I measurements here (made on my screen on the lateral view) up so that the tibia I was equal to "4":

Strocharchus / this specimen
femur I 4.24 / 3.8
patella 1.44 / 1.3
tibia 4.00 / 4.0
metatarsus 4.00 / 4.4
tarsus 1.68 / 1.5

Not sure if that reveals anything, but to support Strocharchus a closer proportional match would have been nice to see. Next step, I suppose would be to dig up leg I measurements for Cheiracanthium mildei.

What do you think? (Would be nice to have the specimen in hand, wouldn't it.)

Okay, now I've done my homework. The lengths (in mm, but used here simply for proportional purposes) are those given for the male specimen in Edwards, 1958. The figures for this specimen and for C. mildei were scaled so that the tibia I length = 4 in each case; numbers rounded to one decimal place.

Leg I part : S. piscatorius / this specimen / C. mildei
femur I : 4.24 / 3.8 / 3.8
patella : 1.44 / 1.3 / 1.1
tibia : 4.00 / 4.0 / 4.0
metatarsus : 4.00 / 4.4 / 4.4
tarsus : 1.68 / 1.5 / 1.5

You will notice that with Strotarchus femur I is longer than the tibia and the metatarsus is the same length as the tibia. C. mildei, however, has a femur I that is shorter than the tibia and a metatarsus that is about 10% longer than the tibia (I remember having noticed the long metatarsus with the last C. mildei specimen).

-K

I was hoping you'd chime in, since you have more resources and time than I do. The palp did give me pause and I considered C. mildei, but I just couldn't get past the fovea. Perhaps it [the fovea] just looks that way in the picture because of lighting? The pictures could be clearer, couldn't they?

At this point I would want to have the specimen in hand and look at it directly. I'd like to look at that fovea area. The leg measurements are revealing and I think you make a good case.

Switching spiders, since you have the Levi(1981) paper on Tetragnathidae, what do you make of this one: