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Scientific classification 
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| Domain: | Eukaryota |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Arthropoda |
| Subphylum: | Chelicerata |
| Class: | Arachnida |
| Order: | Araneae |
| Infraorder: | Araneomorphae |
| Family: | Araneidae |
| Genus: | Arachnura |
| Species: | A. feredayi
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| Binomial name | |
| Arachnura feredayi (L. Koch, 1871)
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The Tailed forest spider, Arachnura feredayi, is native to Australia and New Zealand.[1][2][3][4]. In New Zealand it is found in forests and gardens in both the South Island and North Island of New Zealand [5]. The species is named after an entomologist, Richard William Fereday, who was also a lawyer based in Christchurch [6].
Description
editFemales have a distinctive body feature that takes a form of a tail [7] which is long, yellow-brown abdomen. The females can get to 18 mm in body length and have shoulders that are rounded [5]. Males are only 1 mm in size and without the tailed long abdomen [5]. Their abdomen is oval with a overall pale brown colour, irregular darker brown spots and bands of lighter pale brown stripes down the middle line of the abdomen [6].
Distribution
editTailed forest spiders are native to New Zealand and are found in native forests and occasionally gardens throughout the North and South Island. The webs are observed in low scrub in plants such as Myrsine, Coprosma, Melicytus, Hedycarya, and Geniostoma [8]. Tailed forest spiders have been observed in Otago, South Canterbury and Westport of the West Coast of the South Island. In the North Island, they have been observed in Auckland region, Waikato and some in Taupo to Palmerston North [6].
Life Cycle
editAdult Forest tailed spider females wait near or on her web for males and food. She waits until a male is present. When they mate, the females suspend the fertilised egg cases as long verticals that are V-shape at the top of their web [5]. Males spend most their adult life finding females to mate with and often get consumed by females after mating [9]. Spiderlings that have hatched from the egg case resemble an adult but have a lack of reproductive organs and size [10]. They then moult as their size increases with males (2-8 moults) and females (6 to 12 moults) having different maturing rates [10].
The duration of their life cycle stages is dependent on environmental conditions such as temperature [11].
Forest tailed spiders adults have been observed year round, however are more common from late spring to late summer [6]. Araneidae live on average for about one to two years[9]
Interactions
editTailed forest spiders are carnivorous [12] and create orb webs that are suspended in low scrubs to capture insects and other prey [5]. The orb web sticky with glue droplets and along with the silk thread toughness in order for bigger prey to be caught, retained and to lessen the damage on the web [13]. The are intraspecific competition between forest tail spiders [14] where they are competing with other members of the same species for resources [15]. Forest tail spiders are territorial so they are going to restrict their resources through this intraspecific competition [14].
There has been field experiments conducted to determine bird predation on spider population and found that in some forest ecosystems the relationship between the were strong and some were not [16]. Further field experiments should be conducted to determine whether this would apply for the Tailed Forest spider and to determine other predators present.
Further Information
editWhen the Tailed forest spider form their orbed web, they leave out a V-shape at the top and also have suspended debris of plant material attached to the centre of the web [8].
References
edit- ^ "Arachnura feredayi (L. Koch, 1871)". New Zealand Organisms Register. Retrieved 11 April 2021.
- ^ Paquin, Pierre (2010). Spiders of New Zealand : annotated family key & species list. Lincoln, N.Z.: Manaaki Whenua Press. ISBN 978-0-478-34705-0.
- ^ "Tailed Forest Spider (Arachnura feredayi)". iNaturalist. Retrieved 11 April 2021.
- ^ "Arachnura feredayi (L. Koch, 1871)". Atlas of Living Australia. Retrieved 11 April 2021.
- ^ a b c d e "Phil Bendle Collection:Tailed Forest Spider (Arachnura feredayi) - CitSciHub". www.citscihub.nz. Retrieved 2021-04-11.
- ^ a b c d "The scorpion-tailed orb-weaving spiders (Araneae, Araneidae, Arachnura) in
Australia and New Zealand". Zootaxa. Vol 4706: pp. 151-153. 12 April 2021 – via Lincoln University Library.
{{cite journal}}:|pages=has extra text (help);|volume=has extra text (help); line feed character in|title=at position 75 (help) - ^ "Tailed forest spiders". Canterbury Museum. Retrieved 2021-04-11.
- ^ a b Court, David J. (1982-12-XX). "Spiders from Tawhiti Rahi, Poor Knights Islands, New Zealand". Journal of the Royal Society of New Zealand. 12 (4): 359–371. doi:10.1080/03036758.1982.10415342. ISSN 0303-6758.
{{cite journal}}: Check date values in:|date=(help) - ^ a b Hadley, Debbie. "Learn All About the Habits and Traits of Orb Weaver Spiders". ThoughtCo. Retrieved 2021-04-12.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link) - ^ a b "Spider - Eggs and egg sacs". Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved 2021-04-12.
- ^ "Araneidae - an overview | ScienceDirect Topics". www.sciencedirect.com. Retrieved 2021-04-12.
- ^ "Spiders and other arachnids". teara.govt.nz. Retrieved 2021-04-12.
- ^ Sensenig, Andrew T.; Kelly, Sean P.; Lorentz, Kimberly A.; Lesher, Brittany; Blackledge, Todd A. (2013-09-15). "Mechanical performance of spider orb webs is tuned for high-speed prey". Journal of Experimental Biology. 216 (18): 3388–3394. doi:10.1242/jeb.085571. ISSN 0022-0949. PMID 23966586.
- ^ a b Marshall, Samuel D.; Rypstra, Ann L. (1999). "Spider Competition in Structurally Simple Ecosystems". The Journal of Arachnology. 27 (1): 343–350. ISSN 0161-8202.
- ^ "Encyclopedia of Ecology | ScienceDirect". www.sciencedirect.com. Retrieved 2021-04-12.
- ^ Gunnarsson, Bengt (2007/12). "Bird Predation On Spiders: Ecological Mechanisms And Evolutionary Consequences". The Journal of Arachnology. 35 (3): 509–529. doi:10.1636/RT07-64.1. ISSN 0161-8202.
{{cite journal}}: Check date values in:|date=(help)