Cosmophasis thalassina

Cosmophasis thalassina
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Arthropoda
Class:	Arachnida
Order:	Araneae
Suborder:	Araneomorphae
Family:	Salticidae
Genus:	Cosmophasis
Species:	C. thalassina
Binomial name
Cosmophasis thalassina (C. L. Koch, 1846)
Synonyms
Plexippus thalassinus Thiania thalassina Amycus splendidus Amycus tristriatus Maevia thalassina Cosmophasis splendens

Cosmophasis thalassina is a species of jumping spider found from Malaysia to Australia^[1]. It was probably dispersed to gardens and parks of Queensland by man^[2].

Description

The carapace is covered with greenish-bronze and squamose copper hairs, with some black transverse bands. The opisthosoma is mostly dark, with a white collar at the front that continues beyond halfway along each side. Some transverse white marks can be seen in the frontal part. The dark legs bear white and bronze squamose hairs.^[3]

The metallic color has been found to be a combination of a first-order diffraction grating and an underlying broadband multilayer reflector. The grating directs mostly the blue spectral component away from the incoming direction, which, together with the white reflection, results in a yellow reflection from most angles.^[4]

Footnotes

1. ^ Platnick 2007
2. ^ Patoleta & Zabka 1999: 230
3. ^ Murphy & Murphy 2000: 304
4. ^ Parker & Hegedus 2003

References

• Patoleta, Barbara & Zabka, Marek (1999): Salticidae (Arachnida: Araneae) of Islands off Australia. Journal of Arachnology 27: 229-235. PDF
• Murphy, Frances & Murphy, John (2000): An Introduction to the Spiders of South East Asia. Malaysian Nature Society, Kuala Lumpur.
• Parker, Andrew Richard & Hegedus, Zoltan (2003): Diffractive optics in spiders. J. Opt. A: Pure Appl. Opt. 5: 111-116. doi:10.1088/1464-4258/5/4/364
• Platnick, Norman I. (2007): The world spider catalog, version 8.0. American Museum of Natural History.

External links

• Salticidae.org: Diagnostic drawings