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| Hypochilus thorelli | |
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| Feeding on a katydid | |
Scientific classification 
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| Domain: | Eukaryota |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Arthropoda |
| Subphylum: | Chelicerata |
| Class: | Arachnida |
| Order: | Araneae |
| Infraorder: | Araneomorphae |
| Family: | Hypochilidae |
| Genus: | Hypochilus |
| Species: | H. thorelli |
| Binomial name | |
| Hypochilus thorelli Marx, 1888 | |
Hypochilus thorelli is a species of spider in the family Hypochilidae.
Description
The female has a cephalothorax about 5.5 mm long and an abdomen (opisthosoma) about 9 mm long. The male is smaller, with a cephalothorax of about 4 mm and an abdomen of about 6 mm. Both sexes have very long legs: the first leg of the the female is about 63 mm long; the male has longer and thinner legs, the first leg being about 80 mm long. The cephalothorax of both sexes is light yellowish grey, with a darker star shape underneath. The upper surface of the abdomen is greyish with irregular black lines and marks; the under surface is whiter. There are eight eyes; two clusters of three each on either side and two more central eyes. Both a cribellum and a calamistrum are present.
Like all species in the family Hypochilidae, Hypochilus thorelli has four book lungs, like mesothele and mygalomorph spiders and unlike almost all other araneomorph spiders. The outlines of the lungs are visible on the under surface of the abdomen.
Web
Like other members of the family, Hypochilus thorelli makes a "lampshade-shaped" web. The web is usually fixed to the underside of an overhang. The spider first makes a circular "mat" of silk and then uses this as the top of a cylindrical web that widens downwards and is open at the bottom like a lampshade. The web is held taut by threads of silk connecting it to the substrate below. The stickiness of the web is created by extremely fine strands of cribellate silk, not by glue. The spider rests at the top of the web, with its long legs outstretched and touching the edges of the cylinder.
Taxonomy
Hypochilus thorelli was first described by George Marx in 1888, the genus Hypochilus being erected for this purpose. The genus name is derived from the Greek hypo, below, and cheilos, lip, referring to the position of the labium. The species name honours Tamerlan Thorell. The unique combination of features – four book lungs like mygalomorph spiders but a cribellum like araneomorph spiders – led to Marx placing it in not only a new genus but also a new family, Hypochilidae.
References
- ^ "Taxon details Hypochilus thorelli Marx, 1888", World Spider Catalog, Natural History Museum Bern, retrieved 2015-10-11
- ^ Marx, G. (1888), "On a new and interesting spider", Entomologica Americana, 4: 160–162
- Comstock, J.H. (1912), The spider book; a manual for the study of the spiders and their near relatives, the scorpions, pseudoscorpions, whipscorpions, harvestmen and other members of the class Arachnida, found in America north of Mexico, with analytical keys for their classification and popular accounts of their habits, New York: Doubleday, Page & Co., OCLC 1668052, pp. 257–262
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