White-tailed spider
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| White-tailed spider | ||||||||||||||||
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 Adult in a glass jar
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| Lampona cylindrata L. Koch, 1866 |
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| Lampona murina L. Koch, 1873 |
The white-tailed spider, (common species are Lampona cylindrata, Lampona murina) are medium-sized spiders from southern and eastern Australia, so named because of the whitish tips at the end of their abdomens. They have been introduced to New Zealand where they are considered a household pest.
By comparison with other well-known Australian spiders, white-tailed spiders do not appear to be particularly numerous, but may be responsible for a disproportionately high number of spider-bites because of their habits. Unlike the black house spider and the redback which are often seen in or around dwellings in a web, the white-tailed spider wanders around and may be encountered unexpectedly. Of the 130 recently-monitored cases, several spiders had been picked up off the floor accidentally by short sighted persons thinking that they were something else. More than 60% of the victims had been bitten by spiders that had got into clothing, into folded towels and into beds. In several more cases they were in shoes.
Information on the white-tail species is limited as they are only found in Australia and New Zealand with only a limited number of researchers working in the field.
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[edit] Description
The two common species of white tailed spider are Lampona cylindrata and Lampona murina. They are both similar in appearance; L. cylindrata is slightly larger with females being up to 18 mm long while males are up to 12 mm in body length.[1][2] The legs span approximately 28 mm in diameter.[3] The two species are not easily distinguished from one another without microscopic examination. They are slender spiders having dark reddish to grey, cigar-shaped body and dark orange-brown banded legs. The grey abdomen bears a distinct white spot at the tip just above the spinnerets.[2][4]
The similarities have led people to think there is only a single white tail spider. It is possible that not all white tail species have been identified. The descriptor, white tail, is applied to a variety of species of spiders for which a distal white mark on their abdomen is a distinctive feature; other markings disappear with moultings but the white tail remains to adulthood.
[edit] Distribution
Both species are native to Australia. Lampona cylindrata is present across south east Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia, Tasmania and Western Australia while Lampona murina is found in eastern Australia from north-east Queensland to Victoria.[2] The spider has been introduced in New Zealand with Lampona murina residing in the North Island for over a hundred years while Lampona cylindrata has become widespread throughout the South Island since 1980.[4]
[edit] Habitat, behaviour
They live in gardens and houses, beneath bark and rocks, in leaf litter and are often found in the folds of clothes, towels and shoes. They do not build webs. They are able to walk on glass, due to specialized hairs on the end of their legs. Most active at night, they hunt for other spiders. Their favoured prey is the black house spider.
[edit] No evidence of necrotic bite
The bite of the white tail has been wrongly implicated in cases of arachnogenic necrosis. The misassociation stems from a paper presented at the International Society on Toxinology World Congress held in Brisbane in 1982. Both the white tail and the wolf spider were considered as candidates for possibly causing suspected spider bite necrosis, though it later turned that the recluse spider was the culprit in the reported cases from Brazil.
Despite a lack of positively identified spiders—or even a lack of spider bites in some case—and also despite a death of cases of arachnogenic necrosis reported in the two hundred years of European colonisation, the white tailed was repeatedly blamed. A study published in 2003 monitoring 130 cases had no such incidents, leading researchers to believe that such cases are a rare—rather than a common—outcome for a white-tailed spider bite.[5]
[edit] Names
The species name cylindrata refers to the cylindric body shape, while murinus means "mouse-gray" in Latin.
[edit] Footnotes
- ^ Platnick NI (2000). "A relimitation and revision of the Australasian ground spider family Lamponidae (Araneae: Gnaphosoidea)". Bull Am Mus Nat Hist 245: 1–328. doi:.
- ^ a b c White-tailed spiders. Australian Museum (2003). Retrieved on 2008-02-10.
- ^ Spiders in New Zealand. New Zealand National Poison Centre (2008). Retrieved on 2008-02-10.
- ^ a b White-tailed spiders (Lampona cylindrata and Lampona murina). Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa (2003). Retrieved on 2008-02-10.
- ^ Isbister GK, Gray MR (2003). "White-tail spider bite: a prospective study of 130 definite bites by Lampona species". Med. J. Aust. 179 (4): 199–202. PMID 12914510.
