Newsletter 55 (April 1999)
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Australasian Arachnology No. 55 Page 1 THE AUSTRALASIAN ARTICLES ARACHNOLOGICAL SOCIE"TY The newsletter can only thrive with your contributions ! We encourage articles on a We aim to promote interest in the ecology, range of topics including current research behaviour and taxonomy of arachnids of activities, student projects, upcoming the Australasian region. events or notable behavioural observations. MEMBERSHIP Please send articles to the editor as : Membership is open to amateurs, students i) email attachments, in text, or preferably and professionals, and is managed by our MS Word, format to : Administrator : [email protected] Richard J. Faulder Agricultural Institute ii) typed or legibly written articles on one Yanco, New South Wales 2703. Australia. side of A4 paper. or on disk (which will be returned only upon request), to : or email : [email protected] Dr Tracey Churchill Membership fees (in Australian dollars): CSIRO Wildlife & Ecology PMB 44 Winnellie N.T. 0822. Australian individual: $3 Australia. Australian institutions: $4 Other Australasian individuals: $4 Other Australasian institutions: $6 LIBRARY Non-Australasian individuals: $5 The AAS has a large number of reference (Airmail $10) books, scientific journals and scientific Non-Australasian institutions: $8 papers available for loan or as photocopies, for those members who do Cheques payable in Australian dollars to : not have access to a scientific library. "The Australasian Arachnological Society". Professional members are encouraged to More than 4 issues can be paid for in send in their arachnological reprints. advance. Receipts issued only if requested. Contact our librarian : The Status box on the enveloppe indicates Jean-Claude Herremans the last issue which you have paid for. P.O. Box291 Manly, New South Wales 2095. Australia. Previous issues of the newsletter are or email : [email protected] available at $1 per issue. Australasian Arachnology No. 55 Page 2 EDITORIAL ~ graduate section in the newsletter to With the new millenium approaching we accommodate project outlines and are gearing up up for all sorts of changes. completed abstracts from recent theses ! ! And a change of editor was obviously on With more "hubs of activity" I look forward Mark Harvey's mind at the last to regular contributions from nominated international meeting ! It was in retrospect representatives (offers now open !) to a clever ploy to exploit the dominant aura develop a bigger and better of arachnophilia and to challenge me arachnological web ! ! directly with wistful eyes ! ! Mark has 7~ managed the newsletter since 1990 whilst ........ juggling an ever growing number of work responsibilities and family additions (two wonderful daughters !). On behalf of us all I'd like to thank Mark for his great MEMBERSHIP efforts in producing issues 37-54. Our loss CHANGES will merely be our gain though, as Mark can now re-direct the extra time to producing even more high quality New Members taxonomic revisions ! We welcome two new members : Both Mark Harvey and Robert Raven have been busy increasing our Australasian Kelli-Jo Lamb profile on the international arachnological scene. Mark was significantly involved in WMC Olympic Dam drafting a new constitution tor our PO Box 150 international society whilst Robert was Roxby Downs SA 5725 elected the new president congratulations Rob ! Among Rob's new fax (08) 86710506 responsibilities is the promotion of the email: [email protected] revamped society which is now called the I.A.S. · International Arachnological Helen Smith Society instead of C.I.D.A. : Centre International de Documentation P.O. Box A2114 Arachnologique. Sydney South N.S.W. 1235 Back on the home front, the scene is also changing. We currently have 112 Change of email address members and there is an increasing number of post-graduate students taking David Hirst up exc1tmg opportunities to study South Australian Museum arachnids. I've included a new post- [email protected] Australasian Arachnology No. 55 Page 3 BOOK REVIEW The Australian Water Mites is the fourth in lilJ:\ a series of monographs on invertebrate taxonomy published by the CSIRO. If 'The Australian Water Mites: A Guide to anyone might hold doubts about the Families and Genera.' taxonomic importance of water mites, by Mark S. Harvey. these should be dispelled by this book's CSIRO Publishing, Collingwood, Victoria. introduction. Harvey reveals that with 150 pp. $120.00. their current richness of 413 named species, Australian water mites approach Reviewer: Dr Heather C. Proctor the diversity of this continent's Australian School of Environmental Trichoptera, or caddis-flies (489 species) Studies, Griffith University, and aquatic beetles (approximately 500 Nathan, Qld 4111, Australia spec1es), and easily outnumber the Plecoptera, or stoneflies (179 species) and Ephemeroptera, or mayflies (81 Water mites (Hydracarina) are to the rest species). of the Acari as butterflies are to the rest of the insects; flashy, beautiful, and the Harvey then describes how to collect and object of passion to collectors. Because prepare . water mites for easy of their bright colours and relatively large 1dent1ficat1on. In the subsequent section, s1ze (for mites), hydracarines are among Harvey places the Hydracarina among the best known groups of mites in the terrestnal members of its cohort the world. However, unlike in the United Parasitengona. He disc~sses Kingdom, Sweden, Germany, the U.S. morphological characters that unite the and Canada, there has been no Hydracarina and separate this group from comprehensive guide to the identification the rest of the parasitengones. Each of of genera of water mites in Australia. the nine superfamilies of water mites is David Cook's Water Mites from Australia characterised in a similar manner. Harvey (1986) contains descriptions of an boldly proposes a cladogram of impressive number of species but doesn't relationships among water mite provide a key to families or genera. As superfamilies, providing a phylogenetic well, it is out of date with regard to the hypothesis that other hydrachnologists will current diversity of these mites in be eager to test. Australia. The person who can take most responsibility for increasing the known Harvey then discusses the biogeography number of Australian taxa is Mark Harvey, of the Hydracarina. Water mites clearly who has descnbed more than 40 species had a Pa~gaean or pre-Pangaean origin, and 9 genera over the past decade. In but conllnued to diversify after the this elegant black volume, Harvey separation of the continents. Gondwanan provides illustrated keys to all of associations are particularly striking, with Australia's 22 families and 89 genera of many Australian taxa also occurring in water mites. South America and New Zealand, and Australasian Arachnology No. 55 Page4 others being shared with India and Africa. taxonomic impediment to identification of aquatic mites. The rather hefty price may After a brief discussion of general biology put off some potential purchasers; (with a minor editing error or two : eg. however, I feel it is an investment well p.31) Harvey begins the section on worth the expense, and recommend this identification and taxonomy of Australian well-packaged and informative book to all water mites. An illustrated key to the 22 hydrachnologists and limnologists. families is followed by a generic key for each family. As well as being illustrated in Reference: plentiful line drawings, a wide selection of Cook, D.R. 1986. Water mites from taxa are represented in colour plates. Australia. Mem. Amer. Ent. lnst. 40:1-568. Although many of the pictures are too blurry to be useful for identification, they do give an idea of the diversity of colour CONFERENCE and form displayed by these aquatic u. mites. The keys themselves are simple, ll'lillll REVIEW dichotomous, and well-illustrated. Anyone familiar with keying out arthropods should have little trouble using this book. XIVth International Congress of Arachnology The taxonomic placement and synonymy of each of the 89 genera found in Australia are thoroughly discussed. This Chicago U.S.A. : 27 June - 3 July 1998 is admirable scholarship and clearly reveals Mark Harvey as one of the Reviewer: Dr Tracey Churchill world's experts in water mite systematics. CSIRO Wildlife and Ecology, Darwin The book closes with an excellent & Tropical Savannas CRC. feature, a checklist of the Australian species of water mites together with their This was the first time an international distributions by state and in other congress of arachnology had been held in countries. I've already noted a number of the U.S.A. Since its inception as a taxa whose northern limits could be meeting of European arachnologists in extended from New South Wales and Germany in 1960, only two other venues Victoria into Queensland. had been outside Europe : Panama (1983), and Brisbane (1992). Dr Otto Because of the thoroughness of Harvey's Kraus, who had hosted the 2nd meeting in reviews of generic and supragenaric taxa, Germany, in 1961, presented a great any hydrachnologist will find something of summary of the evolution of the value in this book regardless of where international meetings, and of CIDA they are based. All freshwater ecology (Centre International de Documentation laboratories in Australia should have a Arachnologique : see below). As with copy, as its publication removes the other papers from the meeting, it will hopefully be published in the congress Australasian Arachnology No. 55 Page 5 proceedings as a special issue of the papers looked at a range of aspects of Journal of Arachnology. This journal is a biological control using spiders including publication of the American guild structure, ballooning physics, Arachnological Society, which held their predation and prey choice, decomposition 22nd annual meeting in conjunction with food webs, pesticide effects, and this international meeting making it very architectural modifications. It was a well attended with 315 delegates. stimulating session with enough to interest even the non-agricultural workers.