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Salticidae: Diagnostic Drawings Library

by Jerzy Proszynski 1997

Genus Orsima Simon, 1901

Diagnoses of genera of South East Asia: 51.4 Colourful mimics of ?wasps or ?beetles. Found on shrubs. Genus: Orsima. The remarkable appearance of this colourful salticid has convinced several observers that it is mimicking some insect, possibly a mutillid wasp. Curiously, it is the long black spinnerets and the nearby dark bulge of the abdomen which respectively resemble the antennae, mandibles and head of the insect. Presumably it is the colouring, shape and the kind of movements made by the spider which provides the warning. Certainly the specimen we saw on a large green leaf was moving about in a strange way. The carapace is oblong, longer than wide, with the sides scarcely curving to a wide, truncate posterior margin. It is brown to black in colour. There are four long raised bristles at the rear of the thorax and four corresponding bristles on the front of the abdomen. The abdomen is long, narrow and noticeably constricted, with the front of the abdomen forming an elongate oval bulge and the rear an almost spherical bulge. It is covered with a pattern of numerous light and dark rounded shapes clothed with grey hairs and metallic iridescent scales. The spinnerets are long, grey-brown to black, and prominent. The legs are yellow-orange and with dark, longitudinal stripes on legs IV.
Distribution: Only two species of Orsima are recorded, one from Africa and the other from Sarawak. Murphy & Murphy 2000: 311-312. By courtesy of the Authors' and the Malaysian Nature Society.

Copyright © for the page by J. Proszynski, 1999.