Macro shot of Uroballus carlei, a caterpillar-mimicking jumping spider.

Arachnews: April 2019

Featured image: the newly described jumping spider Uroballus carlei resembles a caterpillar. Credit: Stefan Obenauer, iNaturalist.

There’s satire, cake, molecular phylogeny, and more in this round-up of all things arachnid. This month is very jumping spider-heavy—but can you blame me?!

Education and outreach

Art and media

  • A is for Arachnid! A cool design by scientific illustrator Laura Corillon.

Research and observations

New species and revisions

  • Uroballus carlei, an adorable new jumping spider from Hong Kong, resembles a fuzzy little lichen moth caterpillar. It’s named after Eric Carle, author of The Very Hungry Caterpillar. [Paper.]

  • Four new Euoplos trapdoor spiders construct unique protruding burrow entrances, like turrets or palisades, from which they ambush their prey. [Paper.]

  • A new molecular phylogeny of wolf spiders (family Lycosidae) suggests their unique traits allowed this relatively young family to quickly spread out across the globe. [Paper.]

  • A new DNA barcode-based phylogeny for the crab spider genus Xysticus transfers a whole whackload (scientific term) of species to related genera like Bassaniodes and Psammitis. See the World Spider Catalog entry for the full list. [Paper.]

  • Introducing Asiolasma, a new genus of ortholasmatines, opilionids that sport crown-like, ornate “hoods”. As the name suggests, they’re found throughout Asia. [Paper.]


Thank you for reading! As always, additions and corrections are welcome.

(My apologies for lack of Sci-Hub links, but I think my ISP may be blocking it? I will go back and add the links later when I have time.)

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