AUSTRALASIAN ARACHNOLOGY Nutnber 68: October 2003 Price $3 ISSN 0811-3696 Australasian Arachnology No. 68 Page 2 THE AUSTRALASIAN ARTICLES ARACHNOLOGICAL SOCIETY The newsletter depends on your contributions! We encourage articles on a We aim to promote interest in the a range of topics including current ecology, behaviour and taxonomy of research activities, student projects, arachnids of the Australasian region. upcoming events or behavioural observations. MEMBERSHIP Please send articles to the Editor: Membership is open to amateurs, Dr Tracey Churchill students and professionals, and is Museum & Art Gallery of the managed by our Administrator : Northern Territory GPO Box4646 Richard J. Faulder Darwin NT 0801 Agricultural Institute Australia. Yanco, New South Wales 2703. Australia. email: [email protected] email : [email protected] Format: i) typed or legibly printed on A4 paper or iQ as text or MS Word file on Membership fees in Australian dollars CD, 3 Yi floppy disk, or via email. per 4 issues: Discount"' Normal Institutional LIBRARY Australian $8 $10 $12 The AAS has a large number of reference NZ I Asia $10 $12 $14 books, scientific journals and papers Elsewhere $12 $14 $16 available for loan or as photocopies, for those members who do not have access AU postage is by air mail. to a scientific library. Professional ''Discount rates apply to unemployed, pensioners members are encouraged to send in their and students (please provide proof of status). arachnological reprints. Cheques payable in Australian dollars to Contact our librarian : "Australasian Arachnological Society". More than 4 issues can be paid for in Jean-Claude Herremans advance. Receipts issued on request. PO Box 291 Manly, Status box on the envelope indicates the New South Wales 1655. Australia. last issue paid for. email: [email protected] .au Previous issues of the newsletter are COVER PHOTOGRAPH by Matjaz Kuntner< available at $2 per issue plus postage. Arbanitis vartabilis cJ from S.E. Qld. Australasian Arachnology No. 68 Page 3 EDITORIAL ~ LIBRARY UPDATE It is great to read in this issue that ~ Professor Barry Richardson has converted from being an insect ecologist to a salticid taxonomist! Keep your eyes open for the cute jumpers of interest to Our librarian, Jean-Claude Herremans his project. And for those keen to collect would like to thank Dr Louren9() (Paris): spiders for a worthy scientific cause, also Dr Robert Jackson (University of check out the list of taxa for the large Canterbury), and Dr Cor Vink (previously scale project which Dr Cor Vink is from Lincoln University) for contributing involved in. Be sure, however, to get their recent publications to the society advice from your nearest museum curator library. Any other Australasian about the proper process for sending publications are most welcome! material overseas. The current library holdings by taxon are: Thankyou to the Macquarie University spider lab for an update - sounds like we Acari: 2791 have lots more to read about from there! I have introduced a new category of Amblypygi: 93 "Undergraduate Projects" so we can read about the outcome of a scorpion study in Araneae: 7956 this issue, and other such projects in the future, which members would rarely get Opiliones: 509 the chance to to read about otherwise. Palpigrada: 85 Dr Volker Framenau and Matthew Bruce have provided two conference reviews to Pseudoscorpiones: 770 help keep us up with the latest arachnological meetings. Pycnogonida: 70 For those members who wait by the Ricinulei: 59 letterbox for their next society newsletter, you would be pleased to see that the Schizomida: 78 issues have recently been larger. With a rise in printing costs it is more efficient to Scorpiones: 628 favour newsletter size over frequency of production. So keep up the great work Solifugae: 125 contributing all your arachnological news! Uropygi: 69 ........ 7'Z4«9 Australasian Arachnology No. 68 Page4 ARACHNOLOGICAL Barry and Marek plan to continue Marek's previous work through further revisions of ACTIVITIES genera, the description of many new genera, and the production of regularly updated interactive keys to the family. AUSTRALIAN NATIONAL The latter process, using Biolink, will INSECT COLLECTION eventually include known and predicted distribution maps and photographs of the Barry Richardson & Bruce Halliday genera and ultimately of each species. The project is an ambitious one, given that there are more than 300 described After some years of quiet slumber, work species and at least 1 ,000 yet to be on the spider collection at the Australian described, but each step will be self National Insect Collection in Canberra contained and useful in itself. Barry and has recommenced. This is a Marek are very interested in receiving consequence of two new faces appearing suitable material and information from on the scene. anyone who has any knowledge of Australian salticids. Barry can be A volunteer, Sandy Roy, is working on re­ contacted at [email protected] and curating the collection. He is re-bottling Marek on [email protected]. old material that has been stored in inappropriate containers, upgrading the Bruce Halliday is Curator of Arachnids in collection by extracting the spiders from ANIC, and is continuing his interest in the more than 2,000 bulk samples mites. His present priorities are pest collected by ANIC staff from a wide range mites that occur in stored grain, and a of habitats throughout Australia, and generic level overview and keys to genera sorting them to family as far as possible. of Astigmata ([email protected]). This effort will provide a very useful source of material on the litter living spiders of Australia MACQUARIE UNIVERSITY Barry Richardson has been appointed an Matthew Bruce Honorary Fellow in CSIRO Entomology and has moved back to Canberra from the University of Western Sydney. He has At the beginning of 2001 Dr Mariella given up work on insect communities Herberstein moved from the University of (and other things) to begin taxonomic Melbourne to take up a lectureship at Macquarie University. During her brief studies on the jumping spiders of Australia, an entirely new field for him. period at Macquarie she has managed to This work is being carried out in set up a research laboratory and attracted a number of students working on a broad conjunction with Marek Zabka, the recognised world expert on Australian range of projects concerned with spider salticids. and preying mantid behaviour, ecology and phylogenetics. This is despite the Australasian Arachnology No. 68 Page5 lab's less than ideal position in the spiders sit on flowers and ambush basement and next to the university's unsuspecting pollinators. Astrid's results cobalt source. so far suggest that that crab spiders atlract pollinating insects to flowers due Currently the lab consists of Mariella, to their colour contrast with the flower. Astrid Heiling (post-doctoral student), This research has been very fruitful, Greg Holwell (PhD student) and myself. already producing one Nature paper. Anne Gaskell (research assistant), Abby Fleisch (visiting student from the USA), Four students have recently completed and Honours students Felicity Haese, research projects in the lab. Abby Fleisch Anne Wignall and Phoebe Hill have studied studying the effect of several recently completed their time in the lab meteorological parameters, including and are reported to be recovering well. temperature, humidity, and visibility, on the number and length of web Mariella is working on various aspects of decorations of the orb-web weaving the foraging and mating behaviour of spider, Argiope keyserlingi. Felicity Haese invertebrates such as spiders and praying looked at the function of bright white and mantids. Her current projects include the yellow bands on the abdomen of St. signal function of web decorations in orb Andrew's Cross spiders. Anne Wignall web spiders. These are those curious was working with Astrid on the flower crosses found in St. Andrew's Cross symmetry preferences of honeybees and spiders. Functional hypotheses include crab spiders. prey attraction, predator deterrent or web advertisement to prevent accidental Our basement lab (dungeon) has grown damage by birds. This research also very quickly from its humble beginnings forms the basis of my PhD. project. so if anyone wants to come and join us Another research interest of Manella's is please contact Mariella the intriguing mating behaviour of orb­ ([email protected]) or check web spiders. Sexual cannibalism is quite out our website (www. common in this group of spiders, but the bio.mq.edu.aulbehaviouralecology/). We evolutionary significance is still unclear: is have a number of potential honours and it a case of male sacrifice or simply a PhD projects in behavioural ecology, female foraging strategy? This research taxonomy, ecology and phylogenetics. If was conducted in collaboration with Anne anybody has any Argiope specimens or Gaskett, who until recently was employed knows where to get some, I am looking as a research assistant. Anne still for a number of species to complete my maintains an active interest in the lab and phylogeny of this genus. Please contact has gone on to become our webmaster. me ([email protected]). We are always keen to receive visitors so if Astrid Heiling, a Schroedinger Fellow anybody is visiting Sydney drop us a line from Austria, is collaborating with Mariella and we'll show you around the lab (you on a project that looks at the foraging may even be invited to one of Mariella's behaviour of crab spiders. Typically these famous morning teas). Australasian Arachnology No. 68 Page 6 Australasian Spiders Needed New Zealand members of the Agelenidae) or where their proper family is unknown for the Tree of Life: (e.g., Australian Amaurobioidea). Phylogeny of Spiders For a large project like this a lot of fresh material is needed for DNA sequencing Dr Cor Vink and scanning electron microscope (SEM) work.