Bugs in the News

Surname 1 Bugs in the News The article by Cates and Weishuhn is a story about a type of crab spider that is found in the Thomisidae family. The article seeks to identify two species of crab spiders, and the writers base their identification on their coloration-optical mimicry and their unique anatomical and behavioral traits. The author identifies the two species to be in genus Mecaphesa; a male (Mecaphesa celer), and the other a female (Mecaphesa asperata).

Regina Weishuhn, of Grand Prairie, Texas found a species of spiders in her flower garden that she could not identify since she had not seen them before in Texas. She took photos of these two strange spiders and emailed the photos to Jerry Cates to help her identify them. It is for this reason that Cates came up with this article as a response.

Buy this excellently written paper or order a fresh one from acemyhomework.com

Surname 2 Cates points out that crabs in the Thomisidae family can bite if handled, even without provocation. Even though their bite wounds may become red and yield a swelling that can persist for long, Cates explains that their venom is not considered dangerous to human beings.

Therefore, the article paints a picture that the species in question is not so much dangerous and, thus, will not scare off the readers.

Cates observes that the female has a remarkable coloration. He suggests that the coloration is a very crucial adaptation called mimicry. Mimicry is optical in nature in this case; although it can take numerous other forms like olfactory, geometrical and auditory. The optical mimicry that is observed in other species is in the Batesian; for example where a species that is not venomous mimics that which is venomous. But in the species that Cates was to identify, he observed that the mimicry was merely for camouflage. This was evident in the fact that the spider took on dominant colors of flowers where it rested as it awaited the prey. Cates was keen to note that, and evidently, so, importance of optical mimicry is still controversial. He, therefore, shunned making conclusions on the same topic.

Cates confessed that due to particular technical constraints, his identification of the two strange spiders that Weishuhn wanted to know would not be arrived at with absolute accuracy.

He based his argument on the suggestion of Professor Pekka Lehtinen, from Turku University who argued that at any time that the ventrum appears not to be in the view (just as was the case for Weishuhn’s female spider), general aspects concerning its epigynum are not easy to determine (Lehtinen 317). This normally happens to be the case for almost all spiders that are being examined as specimens that are live in their indigenous habitats. The other observable challenge is that the specifics of the pedipalps, found in the males, are not easily visible in photos of live specimen of the species of Thomisidae family, though they may be visible in other

Surname 3 species. In the photos that Weishuhn sent, the Pedipalps were not depicted to the extent that they could suffice for consideration for palpal characters that hinge on speciation. However, the morphology of external genitals of males and females is very important for the distinction of one species from another. This is the case across most of the entelegyne spiders.

Even with the above limitations, Cates pointed out that identification of the Thomisidae family seems to be a bit straightforward. One of the reasons is that based on the anatomical as well as behavioral traits, the Thomisidae family uniquely possess legs whereby “the first two, on each side counting from the head backward, are long and stout”. The third leg and the fourth one on each side are shorter and slender in comparison (Ubick, Pquin and Cushing 246).

The Thomisidae family members have a worldwide distribution. The family has subsets that can be divided into nine genera, in which one hundred and thirty species have hitherto been recognized. They include: “Timarus, Misumenoides, Misumena, Coriarachne, Synema, Diaea, Misumenops, Mecaphesa, Xysticus and Ozyptila” (Ubick, Pquin and Cushing 246). Cates, having keenly considered all the nine genera of Thomisidae family, tentatively identified the two species as members of the Mecaphesa genus. One of the spiders was a male, which he identified as Mecaphesa celer, and the other was a female, which he identified as Mecaphesa asperata.

As at now, about eighteen species of the Mecaphesa genus have been recognized in North America. The members here have lateral eyes on conjoined tubercles. On the metatarsus I, they lack a prolateral macrosetae. These features were explicitly notable on Weishuhn’s photos; hence the reason Jerry’s identification seems to be acceptable. Evidently, Cates presented the biology of the spiders in question accurately, though he said that it was difficult to make absolute conclusions due to some controversies about the biology of the Thomisidae family. The author appears to have arrived at his conclusions based on facts that can be considered reasonably

Surname 4 accurate; core issues about the spiders have been heavily supported from other literature and he made comparisons widely with other probable families and genera in the family he had identified. The author, though, leaves one loophole; in this article, he has not explicitly described how he arrives at a conclusion about the species names for the Mecaphesa genus he identified.

Surname 5 Works Cited Cates, Jerry and Weishuhn Regina. Thomisid Crab Spiders in Grand Prairie, Texas. Bugs in the News, 2012, July 8. Web. Oct. 7, 2012, http://bugsinthenews.info/?p=6630 Lehtinen Pekka T. "Generic revision of some thomisids related to Xysticus C. L. Koch, 1835 and Ozyptila Simon, 1864." European Arachnology (2000): 315-327.

Ubick, Darell, Paquin Pierre and Cushing Paula Elizabeth. Spiders of North America: an identification manual. New York, NY: American Arachnological Society, 2009. Print.