Predation by the Spider Tidarren Sisyphoides (Walckenaer, 1841) on the Ringneck Coffee Snake Ninia Diademata Baird & Girard, 1853 in Veracruz, Mexico
Herpetology Notes, volume 14: 301-302 (2021) (published online on 09 February 2021) Predation by the spider Tidarren sisyphoides (Walckenaer, 1841) on the Ringneck Coffee Snake Ninia diademata Baird & Girard, 1853 in Veracruz, Mexico Angel Ivan Contreras Calvario1, Manuel de Luna2,*, Abigail Mora Reyes1, and Xavier Contreras Calvario3 The Ringneck Coffee Snake Ninia diademata Baird & from the spider’s web, the snake spasmed and appeared Girard, 1853 is a very small, fossorial dipsadid (up to somewhat rigid. It was collected while still alive but 42 cm in total length). It has a solid black dorsum with died overnight. Both snake and spider were deposited a pale dorsal collar in the neck area and 83–106 and 73– in the herpetological and arachnological collections, 98 subcaudal scales in males and females, respectively. respectively, of the Universidad Autónoma de Nuevo These characteristics differentiate it from its only other León (voucher numbers UANL 8449 for the snake and Mexican congener, the Redback Coffee Snake N. sebae FCB-ATHER 144 for the spider). (Duméril et al., 1854), which has a red dorsum with a The spider was later identified as a female Tidarren black collar in the neck area, often possesses incomplete sisyphoides (Walckenaer, 1841) (Araneae: Theridiidae) black bands on its dorsum, and has fewer subcaudal (Fig. 1B, C) using Levi’s (1970) keys. There are various scales (41–71 in males, 37–60 in females; Heimes, 2016). recorded instances where theridiid spiders have taken Ninia diademata occurs in eastern as well as southern vertebrate prey many times larger than themselves, Mexico, excluding the Yucatán Peninsula, as well as the including snakes (Beaman and Tucker, 2014; Davis et Central American countries of Belize, Guatemala, and al., 2017; Rocha et al., 2017; Nyffeler and Vetter, 2018) Honduras.
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