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Photo#283322
Spider

Spider
Spring Green Preserve State Natural Area, Sauk County, Wisconsin, USA
May 31, 2009

From Rod Crawford:
It's not coloradensis. See live ones
here It might be some sort of Dictyna or it might be a relative. Don't
remember seeing one quite that vari-colored.

Dictyna coloradensis?
I have no idea of range or how many other species may look just like this, but I wanted you to see Dictyna coloradensis.

 
Looks very similiar
Looks very similiar

 
Yes, but I'm finding more...
It looks like there are still quite a few that looks like this. Dictyna major is one see this page. These will probably have to be looked at by an expert.

Moved
Moved from Spiders.

Dictyna-like
is my guess. See others here.

 
Yeah, I would also say Dictyn
Yeah, I would also say Dictyna. Unfortunately there are roughly 50 N.A. species. I only have pictures of perhaps a handful (mostly those found by Rod Crawford, in Washington). If you knew which species are found in Wisconsin, you might be able to make some guesses.

-Kevin

 
At least 5 species
are shown on the Wisconsin species list page:

http://www.canadianarachnology.org/data/spiderslist/WI

Argenna obesa
Dictyna minuta
Emblyna annulipes
Emblyna cruciata
Emblyna sublata


There may be more (I think that species page is incomplete).

 
Oi, my head hurts...
Moving rapidly beyond my knowledge and experience here... :-)

I took one look at the list of Nearctic species of Emblyna and that's enough to make one want to throw in the towel (at least when it comes to any attempt at visual determinations) --- there must be more than 60 species. Of these, I have images of exactly one.. and it looks exactly like what I would call "Dictyna". :\

-K

 
How about this?
I got into trouble yesterday when I did this, but I'll give it another try - this is just a suggestion. :)

According to Platnick, D. annulipes is synonymous with Emblyna annulipes, the latter name being the current one.

On page 246 of Spiders of the Eastern United States, Howell et al, is a picture of D. annulipes that is a very close match to our spider here.

What do you think?

 
Yes, agreed, but they all loo
Yes, agreed, but they all look more or less like that (at least the species I've seen). In central Europe we have only a handful (3-4) species and thus you can more or less tell them apart on close inspection, but the Nearctic has more than 100 species, according to Howell and Jenkins.

Is this one species, then, so common as to generally rule out any other possibilities? Perhaps (I don't know). I, however, would like to see a few more up close before making any call and in my own collection would stick with Dictyna/Emblyna spec. for now, or perhaps Emblyna cf. annulipes. (BTW, does anyone know the story behind the split -- assuming that this was a split -- into Emblyna and Dictyna?)

-K

 
Maybe
I understand there may be more than 100 species in the Nearctic, but within the context of Wisconsin we can be sure of at least 5 species being found there. Of those, Emblyna annulipes looks very much like our spider. So, in that context I thought it was a logical possibility.

I like your suggestion of Emblyna cf. annulipes.

As I said, I'm just throwing out possibilities. I don't mean to imply it definitely is this exact species. I, too, would like a little more information before deciding on a species.

 
> but within the context of
> but within the context of Wisconsin

That's true -- I forgot about that.

> I like your suggestion of Emblyna cf. annulipes.

That's something (or similar) that I'd like to see added to the other metadata checkboxes (adult, male, female, etc.) -- that and a couple more things. But no idea whether any additions have been planned in this area (more news has been forthcoming lately, but still seems to be a rather black-box process).

-K

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