Smaller Hersiliidae - Murricia uva

It would be nice, after cropping,

if you would post several of your better images at maybe 1500 pixels rather than 480. It is very helpful to the experts who visit to be able to see the full size image, so they can see details they might not be able to make out in the smaller images. While there is no point in posting every image at that size, it is very helpful if the better images are posted at that size. As long as an image is under 2Mb it will most likely be uploadable to BugGuide. Thanks,

… john and jane balaban, 22 August, 2022 - 6:43pm

Moved

Moved from Hersiliids.

… john and jane balaban, 22 August, 2022 - 3:46pm

Seems like even with the point and shoot

that you would be able to get close enough to get more than four or five hundred pixels in your images. Wonder if the camera is downsizing the image somewhere because you are posting it to the web. Can you look at the original image somehow and see how many pixels it has?

… john and jane balaban, 22 August, 2022 - 3:07pm

Pixels

That is wonderful...Murricia uva!
Most of my original photos have an image size of around 4608x3456. I use the camera software to manipulate(reduce) the size of the image for the rules of Bugguide.net which in my case is around a 480 by 476 per image.
Thank you for all the help.

… Kathy Duncan, 22 August, 2022 - 5:11pm

It looks that all of our images from Florida

have this same pattern

Does it seem appropriate, Dr Salticid, to move all these to Murricia uva?
Kathy do you have images with more pixels? It would be great to be able to zoom in on some of the features.

… john and jane balaban, 22 August, 2022 - 7:46am

Photos

I wish I could say I had better photos, but I do not. I use a Nikon P900 point and shoot. I recently added a Raynox Macroscopic lens which helps with detail, but still is not as wonderful as the DSLR photos are.
If by chance, there is anyone with a DSLR who lives in this area, I would be happy to meet them at Largo Cental Park Nature Preserve and show them where to find the Hersiliids.

FYI There is a wonderful new Princeton Field Guide to Spiders of North America by Sarah Rose. Hersiliidae are on page 57.

… Kathy Duncan, 22 August, 2022 - 2:05pm

Yes, we just have to get someone to study

the Hersiliids of Florida so we finally know what is there. We think GB Edwards was going to study them. Not sure how that went. Will sent a note.

… john and jane balaban, 21 August, 2022 - 5:29pm

Florida hersiliids

To my knowledge, there are only two hersiliid species in Florida. Yabisi habanensis, which was reported from the Keys, and Murricia uva which showed up in southeastern peninsular Florida about the time it was described from central Africa in 2008. As of 2015, it was only known from Miami-Dade and Broward counties. Obviously it has spread considerably since then. This looks like Murricia uva to me.

… G.B. Edwards, 22 August, 2022 - 7:29am

Moved

Moved from ID Request.

… john and jane balaban, 20 June, 2022 - 2:02pm

Thank you

It was there again today 06/20/22.

… Kathy Duncan, 20 June, 2022 - 4:04pm

3 small Hersiliids

Since 7/18/2022 I have been observing 3 small Hersiliids in the same general area. I have visited the Preserve 6 times since 7/18/2022, and each time I am always looking forward to see if they are still there, and so far they still are.

… Kathy Duncan, 31 July, 2022 - 2:46pm

4 and now 5 Long Spinneret Spiders.

On 8/12/2022, I saw 4 small Hersiliids, and then again on 8/14 I saw 4. Today I was happy to find 5. They are all on the underside of the boardwalk handrail and within the same area where I originally saw the first larger one(5/28/22). As for the five, it looked as though one had dug into a cocoon and was enjoying the contents. I am glad they don't try and run and hide the way the Twin-flagged Jumpers do, so I guess they just tolerate me trying to get their photo. I also check the tree trunks in the area, because one of their common names is Tree Trunk Spider.

As a side note, I also used my Seek app, which is a wonderful app for nature lovers, on a couple of my photos of the spiders, and 2 or 3 times it would ID them as Neotama mexicana or Mexican Two-tailed Spider. Most of the time as Seek is working its way through the Scientific classification it stops at Long Spinnerets or Two-tailed Spiders. I know it isn't always right so I try to verify what it says, but it is fun to have it to help.

… Kathy Duncan, 21 August, 2022 - 4:27pm

habitat

Since this is an introduced species, it is to be hoped that it will restrict its activities to non-natural environments like handrails. If/when they start showing up on tree trunks, the threat level to native species will be increased. While I agree that hersiliids are neat animals, as a matter of principle we don't want an introduced species to threaten the existence of any native species.

… G.B. Edwards, 5 September, 2022 - 6:26pm

Thanks Dr. Salticid

I do not want them to displace or threaten native species either.
For my update, the last time I saw one was 09/01/2022. It was located a little further east of where the others were. Yesterday, and today I did not see any of them. Still getting rain everyday.
Thank you for the ID.

… Kathy Duncan, 14 September, 2022 - 2:58pm