Idiosoma

: "Idiosoma is also the terminus for an anatomical structure of mites."

Taxobox
name = "Idiosoma"


image_caption =
image_width = 250px
regnum = Animalia
phylum = Arthropoda
classis = Arachnida
ordo = Araneae
subordo = Araneomorphae
familia = Idiopidae
genus = ""'Idiosoma"
genus_authority = Ausserer, 1871
type_species = "Idiops sigillatus"
type_species_authority = O. P.-Cambridge, 1870
diversity_link = List of Idiopidae species#Idiosoma
diversity = 3 species
subdivision_ranks = Species
subdivision =See text.

"Idiosoma" is a genus of trapdoor spiders in the family Idiopidae with three species, found only in Western Australia.

The genus was transferred from Ctenizidae to Idiopidae in 1985 [Platnick 2008] .

Idiosoma nigrum

"I. nigrum", commonly called the Black rugose trapdoor spider, can grow up to 30 mm long. Males reach a body size of up to 18 mm. The skin of their opisthosoma is hardened, with a flattened end and deep grooves running along the sides. The thickened skin helps to reduce water loss in its dry habitat. It also serves as a kind of plug to shield itself from predators. This phenomen is called phragmosis and occurs in perfection in the spider genus "Cyclocosmia" (Ctenizidae). However, some parasitic wasps have evolved paper-thin abdomens and long, slender ovipositors and lay their eggs on the softer skin at the front of the spider's opisthosoma.Australian Museum Online]

Its burrow is up to 32 cm deep, where the temperature is relatively constant during the seasons. When prey trips over one of the trip-lines radiating from the burrow's entrance, the spider runs out of the burrow to capture ants, beetles, cockroaches, millipedes and moths. This is unlike many trapdoor spiders that very rarely leave their burrow. Males actively look for females, and mating takes place in the female's burrow. She lays her eggs during late spring and early summer. The spiderlings hatch in mid-summer, and stay inside the burrow until early winter, when the climate gets more humid.

Name

The genus name is derived from the Greek "idios" "individual, unique" and "soma" "body", referring to the distinctive structure of the abdomen.

pecies

* "Idiosoma hirsutum" Main, 1952
* "Idiosoma nigrum" Main, 1952 — Black Rugose Trapdoor Spider
* "Idiosoma sigillatum" (O. P.-Cambridge, 1870)

Footnotes

References

* Australian Museum Online (2003): [http://www.austmus.gov.au/factsheets/rugose.htm Black Rugose Trapdoor Spider fact sheet] — with picture
* (2008): [http://research.amnh.org/entomology/spiders/catalog/index.html The world spider catalog] , version 8.5. "American Museum of Natural History".

Further reading

* (1952): Notes on the genus "Idiosoma", a supposedly rare Western Australian trap-door spider. "W. Aust. Nat." 3: 130-137.
* (1957): Biology of aganippine trapdoor spiders (Mygalomorphae: Ctenizidae). "Aust. J. Zool." 5: 402-473.
* (1985): Further studies on the systematics of ctenizid trapdoor spiders: A review of the Australian genera (Araneae: Mygalomorphae: Ctenizidae). "Aust. J. Zool." (suppl. Ser.) 108: 1-84.