Subspecies
Original description
Synonyms
Araneus
cucurbitinus opisthographa Kulczynski, 1905
Araneus cucurbitinus
opisthographus Kulczynski, 1905
Aranea
cucurbitina opisthographa (Kulczynski, 1905)
Araniella
opisthographa (Kulczynski, 1905)
Araniella
cucurbitina opisthographa (Kulczynski, 1905)
Araneus
opisthographus (Kulczynski, 1905)
Aranea
opisthographa (Kulczynski, 1905)
Araneus
cucurbitinus opistographus auct. (misspelling)
Aranea
cucurbitina opistographa auct. (misspelling)
Araneus
opistographus auct. (misspelling)
Araniella
opistographa auct. (misspelling)
Araneus
cucurbitina auct. nec Clerck, 1757
(misidentification)
Identification
Araniella
cucurbitina and Araniella opisthographa are
extremely similar. To my knowledge, the females
cannot be separated with confidence. There is a
slight difference in the length of the scapus of
the female genitalia, but this is difficult to see
on a single individual and is only becoming
obvious if larger series are available. The males
differ in their palp morphology. Araniella
cucurbitina has a short median apophysis with a
kink that gives the apophysis a hook-shaped
appearance, whereas this apophysis is long, and
smoothly curved along its entire length in
Araniella opisthographa. In addition, the hair
pattern on the ventral side of the femur of the
first walking leg differs between the two species.
The males of Araniella cucurbitina have a clear
gap in the hair pattern, usually only 3 basal and
1 apical hair, whereas Araniella opisthographa has
a pattern of 7 (sometimes 8) hairs, regularly
spaced all along the ventral side of the femur.
Some authors claim that the number black spots
along the sides of the opisthosoma can also be
used to distinguish between the species, but this
is incorrect. In both species the number of
lateral spot pairs varies between 3-5 (usually 4).
Distribution
Biology
This page has been updated on March 21, 2012
This site is online since May 31, 2005
Copyright © by Nikola-Michael Prpic. All
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