Crab Spider - Mecaphesa

Moved

… john and jane balaban, 25 December, 2014 - 8:39pm

There are only 2 species of Mecaphesa

(formerly Misumenops)
listed for Illinois and Wisconsin:
Misumenops asperatus (Hentz 1847)
Misumenops celer (Hentz 1847)
So it does have to be one of those two, but we don't know what characteristics separate them :(

Misumenops oblongus (Keyserling 1880) has been moved to Misumessus

… john and jane balaban, 10 December, 2011 - 4:08pm

John-Jane, where are you getting the information that there are only two species of Mecaphesa in Illinois and Wisconsin? Gertsch 1939 is the only revision I'm aware of that ever attempted U.S. coverage, and the Thomisids have been revised several times since then. Schick 1965 only claims coverage for California, and Dondale/Redner 1978 only claims coverage for Canada. I would very much like to know about resources I'm missing!

… Joe Lapp, 25 March, 2012 - 3:33pm

There is a three part document

for the spiders of the Great Lakes Region.This is the first part. Other parts, appendices, etc. can be reached by clicking on "Next Article" on the right. The third document, Appendix II, has the synonymy and the species lists where we found the information we mentioned.

… john and jane balaban, 25 March, 2012 - 5:41pm

What an awesome resource! Thanks for pointing me to it! It appears that they have determinations of spiders from a number of people, both taken from the literature and made by authors of the paper. It appears to be consensus that all the celer-like Mecaphesa are keying out to celer. Asperata is easy to key, so I have no reason to question that. There are many celer-like spiders here in Texas that don't fit the keys well, but being closer to the tropics does that sort of thing. Carletonica males seem different enough that if they had one of those, they would know.

So I think you're right. We can make reasonable inferences from this. Sorry for doubting you! The paper says that asperata is was found in all five states, that celer was only found in Illinois, Michigan, and Ohio, but that statistical analysis suggests that celer should also be present in Indiana and Wisconsin.

You previously had a group called "asperata/celer sibling species" or something like that. We could set aside a group again for Great Lakes Mecaphesa, but I'm uncomfortable calling these two "sibling species." They're siblings only for belonging to the same genus; their genital morphologies are very different. On the other hand, celer *does* have a lot of confusing sibling species. Since you created a group for the celer complex, we would just need to make sure the Great Lakes group is distinctly named. Maybe "Great Lakes asperata or celer" to be clear?

I presently have three adult females that I believe to be celer. At least one of them has mated. It shouldn't be long before we have a better sense of celer females.

Thanks again for posting the link! Sorry for being such a pain about the asperata/celer thing.

… Joe Lapp, 25 March, 2012 - 8:59pm

Not a problem

We'll make the new page for you and you can tell us what to post there.

… john and jane balaban, 25 March, 2012 - 9:38pm

Okay. I guess I should do the work, after undoing yours! lol! I'll paste a comment in each to make it clear why it's there. I don't think I'll get to it tonight though.

… Joe Lapp, 25 March, 2012 - 9:44pm

Well, maybe someday these pho

Well, maybe someday these photos will help to separate them:)

… Ilona L., 10 December, 2011 - 5:53pm