Little green spider - Metazygia zilloides

Moved tentatively

Moved from Spiders.

… Lynette Elliott, 25 September, 2014 - 7:35am

Moved

Moved from ID Request.

… john and jane balaban, 15 September, 2014 - 9:31am

Spiders are very difficult to ID from lateral images

One needs to guess what the dorsal pattern might look like. We would guess it lookslike

We haven't seen any Larinioides with such a pettern, but that doesn't mean there aren't any. We have seen some with no pattern at all. More certainty would come with dorsal and ventral images.

… john and jane balaban, 24 August, 2014 - 9:14am

Also, John/Jane, I will shortly be posting photos of Castianeira and Teminius that I have raised and photographed at each instar, which I believe would have resulted in BugGuide labeling the young instars with the wrong species or even the wrong genus. Immatures of related spiders can look very much alike. Taxonomic revisions only describe adults.

… Joe Lapp, 24 August, 2014 - 10:37am

Excellent! Thanks

Looking forward to your image series. Thanks for all your great work on these. It will add greatly to folk's understanding of these spiders.

… john and jane balaban, 24 August, 2014 - 10:55am

I think that's it. All of the characters that M. wittfeldae didn't have that L. cornutus did are also on the Metazygia zilloides photos on BugGuide. So that's a match for everything.

… Joe Lapp, 24 August, 2014 - 9:39am

Spider ID

You can see part of a mark in the area where this spider is marked, you just can't see all of it. This is the only image I have sorry. I looked at the images here on file and didn't see a green one, but the patterns on the legs look the same.

… Jim Bridges, 24 August, 2014 - 9:31am

Some comparisons

I asked Lynette about this one privately, and she suggested that I investigate Metazygia wittfeldae. I've been examining an adult female M. wittfeldae specimen, an adult male Larinioides cornutus specimen, and the Levi revisions for Metazygia, Larinioides (Nuctenea at the time), and Araniella. Here are my observations:

(1) The carapace is relatively bare of setae, as with Metazygia and Araniella, unlike Larinioides.
(2) The thoracic carapace is higher than the cephalic carapace, unlike Metazygia and Araniella, more closely matching Larinioides.
(3) The legs have dark bands near the joints, unlike Metazygia and Araniella, more closely matching Larinioides.
(4) Tibia 1 has large numbers of ventral macrosetae, unlike Metazygia and Araniella, more closely matching Larinioides.
(5) It is not stated above, but the photographer informed me that the spider was right next to a lake, which in Texas is primarily where Metazygia and Larinioides are found.

I'm inclined to think that this is more likely an immature Larinioides than the other possibilities. From photo essays that I have not yet published (but will soon), I am finding that immature spiders of related groups look very much alike, with some immatures even looking like the adults of other species. So in the end, I don't think we can know what this is.

Lynette points out that the abdominal pattern is similar to M. wittfeldae, and that spider colors can vary greatly so we can't ID this based on the color. I'm wondering if it is possible for an immature Larinioides cornutus to have a similar abdominal pattern.

… Joe Lapp, 24 August, 2014 - 1:10am