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Home » Guide » Arthropods (Arthropoda) » Chelicerates (Chelicerata) » Arachnids (Arachnida) » Spiders (Araneae) » True Spiders (Araneomorphae) » Entelegynae » Crab Spiders (Thomisidae) » Mecaphesa » Northern Crab Spider (Mecaphesa asperata)
Photo#607106
Winter Mecaphesa - dorsal labelling - Mecaphesa asperata - male
Copyright © 2012 Joe Lapp

Winter Mecaphesa - dorsal labelling - Mecaphesa asperata - Male
McKinney Roughs Nature Park, Bastrop County, Texas, USA
January 6, 2011
Size: 3.5mm
I suspect this labelling is diagnostic for at least one color form of M. asperata. Not all M. asperata show all these characters, but if they are there, that's a strong indication. I even have one specimen that showed these characters as a subadult but not as an adult.

P.S. Lynette Schimming asked me to post spider images with labels.

Images of this individual: tag all
Winter Mecaphesa - adult portrait - Mecaphesa asperata - male Winter Mecaphesa - adult dorsal - Mecaphesa asperata - male Winter Mecaphesa - adult ventral - Mecaphesa asperata - male Winter Mecaphesa - palp ventral - Mecaphesa asperata - male Winter Mecaphesa - palp retrolateral - Mecaphesa asperata - male Winter Mecaphesa - penultimate dorsal - Mecaphesa asperata - male Winter Mecaphesa - penultimate lateral - Mecaphesa asperata - male Winter Mecaphesa - penultimate ventral - Mecaphesa asperata - male Winter Mecaphesa - adult dorsal closeup - Mecaphesa asperata - male Winter Mecaphesa - penultimate dorsal closeup - Mecaphesa asperata - male Winter Mecaphesa - dorsal labelling - Mecaphesa asperata - male
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Contributed by Joe Lapp on 14 January, 2012 - 12:37pm
Last updated 8 February, 2012 - 9:23am

Relatively short femur I
I've discovered a neat trick for distinguishing male Mecaphesa asperata from most other Mecaphesa. In most Mecaphesa males, femur I is about twice as long as the width of the carapace, whereas femur I is usually noticeably less than twice the width in M. asperata. The specimen you see here has femur I unusually long for this species, reminding us that the heuristic would be a guideline and not a rule. This clue occurs in the measurements given in Gertsch 1939, which appears to be confirmed by photos here on BG.
… Joe Lapp, 12 April, 2015 - 10:53pm login or register to post comments

Excellent
This will help very much!
… Lynette Elliott, 15 January, 2012 - 12:38pm login or register to post comments

Added thumbnail to Info page.
Added thumbnail to Info page.
… Kevin Pfeiffer, 15 January, 2012 - 3:08am login or register to post comments

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