A redescription of
The ant-like sac spider Merenius alberti Lessert, 1923, previously known only from South Africa, is redescribed.The species is recorded for the first time from Mozambique, Swaziland and Zimbabwe. While most populations of M. alberti conform to the typical black morph of the species, a red morph is a...
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Veröffentlicht in: | African invertebrates 2012-11, Vol.53 (2), p.571-591 |
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Format: | Artikel |
Sprache: | eng |
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Zusammenfassung: | The ant-like sac spider Merenius alberti Lessert, 1923, previously known only from South Africa, is redescribed.The species is recorded for the first time from Mozambique, Swaziland and Zimbabwe. While most populations of M. alberti conform to the typical black morph of the species, a red morph is also reported here, providing the first case of colour polymorphism in an Afrotropical ant-like castianeirine spider. Spiders were collected by hand, and ants by pitfall trapping in the Ndumo Game Reserve in northern KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, to identify the potential models of the two colour morphs of M. alberti. The ants collected at 20 sites in the reserve suggest that the black morph is a generalised mimic of black ground-dwelling ants, most likely Camponotus cinctellus (Gerstäcker, 1859), Streblognathus peetersi Robertson, 2002 and Polyrhachis gagates F. Smith, 1858, while the red morph is a mimic of Anoplolepis custodiens (F. Smith, 1858) ants. |
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ISSN: | 1681-5556 2305-2562 |
DOI: | 10.10520/EJC129448 |