Color phor: [ Orsima ichneumon ] TYPE SPECIES][ Orsima constricta [ Orsima ichneumon ] [ Orsima sp. from Anai ]
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.