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Home » Forums » Articles

Misumena, Misumenoides, and Misumenops

Lynette's recent question sent us back to the books and the images stored in BugGuide. Here is our admittedly amateur answer to the question of identity of these three. Please advise where this should be posted once people have had a chance to add comments and after we fix this draft.

Misumena:
All four anterior (front) eyes are about the same size. When viewed from the front, and a little above, it seems all eight eyes are visible and form a crescent shape. The lateral eyes are on tubercles, but the posterior laterals are visible. See



Misumenoides:
All four anterior (front) eyes are about the same size. When viewed from the front, and a little above, only six eyes are visible. The posterior laterals are facing sideways and are on the ends of a long horizontal transverse ridge across the face. See



Misumenops:
The anterior lateral eyes are a little larger than the anterior median eyes. When viewed from the front, and a little above, only six eyes are visible. The posterior laterals are facing sideways and backwards on tubercles that include the anterior laterals. Misumenops is also often (always?) hairy. See



Comments, corrections, and suggestions most welcome.
john and jane
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Contributed by john and jane balaban on 27 November, 2005 - 2:25pm

This is a great reference
I had missed the link to it on the family page before, but found it after John and Jane identified a Misumenops of mine just now. It seems to me that this should all appear on the Thomisidae page, rather than being hidden on the Misumena vatia page. I was tempted to just copy and paste it right now, but figured I'd better comment here instead, in case there was a reason for its placement that hadn't occurred to me.

Edit: I see now that this is also on the Misumena genus page, but the link below took me to the Misumena vatia page. I think the most logical approach would be to have the comparison occur at the family level, and then just show the genus in question on the page for each genus, stressing the defining characters, and referring users to the similar genera and/or back to the family page in the "see also" section. I think the genus page is also the best place to offer tips on distinguishing among members of that genus, as I have attempted to do here. The M. vatia page ought to highlight what is distinctive about that species, and it seems odd to have the comparison of the genera repeated there.

I'm just trying to articulate the organization scheme that most helps me personally when trying to sort out an ID--if anyone feels differently, please chime in!
… Charley Eiseman, 7 October, 2008 - 11:02pm login or register to post comments

 
One advantage to having it at the species level
users unfamiliar with the taxonomy are more likely to find themselves at that info page than at higher levels, if they come to the guide via an image or an identifying comment. I don't see any harm in showing the same information at many levels of the guide.
… Hannah Nendick-Mason, 8 October, 2008 - 8:40am login or register to post comments

Moved to guide page
We moved this to the Identification box on the Misumena guide page here, and linked to it from Misumenoides and Misumenops. Please continue to make comments and corrections here and we will make those changes there. Now that we have done this we have questions on Richard's and Tony's . They seem more like Misumenoides to us. What do others think?
… john and jane balaban, 3 December, 2005 - 10:10am login or register to post comments

This is great.
As you may have noticed, I've been floundering about with only a very vague notion of the differences based on a single comment in Florida's Fabulous Spiders!
Either a link to this, or the whole thing, should be posted in the identification section of each of the relevant guide pages, I think.
… Hannah Nendick-Mason, 28 November, 2005 - 7:37am login or register to post comments

 
I agree.
Yesterday I linked some good forum discussions to the Peucetia guide page.
Any relevant discussions in the forum pages should be utilized.
… Jeff Hollenbeck, 11 December, 2005 - 1:15pm login or register to post comments

very nice
The one line about there being six eyes visible vs. eight is a great help to me. Thanks for this!
… Lynette Schimming, 27 November, 2005 - 9:26pm login or register to post comments

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