Cosmophasis
Encyclopedia
Cosmophasis is a genus
of the spider
family Salticidae (jumping spider
s). Some species occur in Africa
, while most are found in Southeast Asia
, down to Australia
. Although most species more or less mimic ants
, there are also colorful species that follow a different strategy.
C. bitaeniata uses chemical mimicry to be accepted by the aggressive weaver ant
species Oecophylla smaragdina
.
One species, said to be not a particularly good ant mimic, was observed living near and preying on ants. According to (Murphy & Murphy, 2000), "to watch the spider stalking and killing its prey is an arachnological spectacular".
Genus
In biology, a genus is a low-level taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms, which is an example of definition by genus and differentia...
of the spider
Spider
Spiders are air-breathing arthropods that have eight legs, and chelicerae with fangs that inject venom. They are the largest order of arachnids and rank seventh in total species diversity among all other groups of organisms...
family Salticidae (jumping spider
Jumping spider
The jumping spider family contains more than 500 described genera and about 5,000 described species, making it the largest family of spiders with about 13% of all species. Jumping spiders have some of the best vision among invertebrates and use it in courtship, hunting and navigation...
s). Some species occur in Africa
Africa
Africa is the world's second largest and second most populous continent, after Asia. At about 30.2 million km² including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of the Earth's total surface area and 20.4% of the total land area...
, while most are found in Southeast Asia
Southeast Asia
Southeast Asia, South-East Asia, South East Asia or Southeastern Asia is a subregion of Asia, consisting of the countries that are geographically south of China, east of India, west of New Guinea and north of Australia. The region lies on the intersection of geological plates, with heavy seismic...
, down to Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
. Although most species more or less mimic ants
Ant mimicry
Ant mimicry is mimicry of ants by other organisms. Ants are abundant all over the world, and insect predators that rely on vision to identify their prey such as birds and wasps normally avoid them, either because they are unpalatable, or aggressive. Thus some other arthropods mimic ants to escape...
, there are also colorful species that follow a different strategy.
C. bitaeniata uses chemical mimicry to be accepted by the aggressive weaver ant
Weaver ant
Weaver ants or Green ants are eusocial insects of the family Formicidae . Weaver ants are obligately arboreal and are known for their unique nest building behaviour where workers construct nests by weaving together leaves using larval silk...
species Oecophylla smaragdina
Oecophylla smaragdina
Oecophylla smaragdina is a species of arboreal ant found in Asia and Australia. They make nests in trees made of leaves stitched together using the silk produced by their larvae.Weaver ants may be red or green...
.
One species, said to be not a particularly good ant mimic, was observed living near and preying on ants. According to (Murphy & Murphy, 2000), "to watch the spider stalking and killing its prey is an arachnological spectacular".
Species
- Cosmophasis albipes BerlandLucien BerlandLucien Berland was a French entomologist and an arachnologist- Partial list of publications :* 1925 : Faune de France...
& Millot, 1941 — GuineaGuineaGuinea , officially the Republic of Guinea , is a country in West Africa. Formerly known as French Guinea , it is today sometimes called Guinea-Conakry to distinguish it from its neighbour Guinea-Bissau. Guinea is divided into eight administrative regions and subdivided into thirty-three prefectures... - Cosmophasis albomaculata Schenkel, 1944 — TimorTimorTimor is an island at the southern end of Maritime Southeast Asia, north of the Timor Sea. It is divided between the independent state of East Timor, and West Timor, belonging to the Indonesian province of East Nusa Tenggara. The island's surface is 30,777 square kilometres...
- Cosmophasis arborea Berry, Beatty & Prószyński, 1997 — Caroline IslandsCaroline IslandsThe Caroline Islands are a widely scattered archipelago of tiny islands in the western Pacific Ocean, to the north of New Guinea. Politically they are divided between the Federated States of Micronesia in the eastern part of the group, and Palau at the extreme western end...
- Cosmophasis australis SimonEugène SimonEugène Simon was a French arachnologist. His many taxonomic contributions include categorizing and naming many spiders, as well as creating genera such as Anelosimus, Psellocoptus and Phlogius....
, 1902 — South AfricaSouth AfricaThe Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans... - Cosmophasis bitaeniata (KeyserlingEugen von KeyserlingEugen von Keyserling was a German arachnologist.He was the author of Die Spinnen Amerikas, and completed Die Arachniden Australiens on behalf of Ludwig Carl Christian Koch.-External links:...
, 1882) — New GuineaNew GuineaNew Guinea is the world's second largest island, after Greenland, covering a land area of 786,000 km2. Located in the southwest Pacific Ocean, it lies geographically to the east of the Malay Archipelago, with which it is sometimes included as part of a greater Indo-Australian Archipelago...
, AustraliaAustraliaAustralia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
, MicronesiaMicronesiaMicronesia is a subregion of Oceania, comprising thousands of small islands in the western Pacific Ocean. It is distinct from Melanesia to the south, and Polynesia to the east. The Philippines lie to the west, and Indonesia to the southwest.... - Cosmophasis caerulea Simon, 1901 — West AfricaWest AfricaWest Africa or Western Africa is the westernmost region of the African continent. Geopolitically, the UN definition of Western Africa includes the following 16 countries and an area of approximately 5 million square km:-Flags of West Africa:...
- Cosmophasis chlorophthalma (Simon, 1898) — New HebridesNew HebridesNew Hebrides was the colonial name for an island group in the South Pacific that now forms the nation of Vanuatu. The New Hebrides were colonized by both the British and French in the 18th century shortly after Captain James Cook visited the islands...
- Cosmophasis chopardi Berland & Millot, 1941 — Ivory Coast
- Cosmophasis cypria (Thorell, 1890) — JavaJavaJava is an island of Indonesia. With a population of 135 million , it is the world's most populous island, and one of the most densely populated regions in the world. It is home to 60% of Indonesia's population. The Indonesian capital city, Jakarta, is in west Java...
- Cosmophasis depilata Caporiacco, 1940 — EthiopiaEthiopiaEthiopia , officially known as the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a country located in the Horn of Africa. It is the second-most populous nation in Africa, with over 82 million inhabitants, and the tenth-largest by area, occupying 1,100,000 km2...
- Cosmophasis estrellaensis Barrion & Litsinger, 1995 — PhilippinesPhilippinesThe Philippines , officially known as the Republic of the Philippines , is a country in Southeast Asia in the western Pacific Ocean. To its north across the Luzon Strait lies Taiwan. West across the South China Sea sits Vietnam...
- Cosmophasis fagei Lessert, 1925 — East AfricaEast AfricaEast Africa or Eastern Africa is the easterly region of the African continent, variably defined by geography or geopolitics. In the UN scheme of geographic regions, 19 territories constitute Eastern Africa:...
- Cosmophasis fazanica Caporiacco, 1936 — LibyaLibyaLibya is an African country in the Maghreb region of North Africa bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to the north, Egypt to the east, Sudan to the southeast, Chad and Niger to the south, and Algeria and Tunisia to the west....
- Cosmophasis gemmans (Thorell, 1890) — SumatraSumatraSumatra is an island in western Indonesia, westernmost of the Sunda Islands. It is the largest island entirely in Indonesia , and the sixth largest island in the world at 473,481 km2 with a population of 50,365,538...
- Cosmophasis lami Berry, Beatty & Prószyński, 1997 — FijiFijiFiji , officially the Republic of Fiji , is an island nation in Melanesia in the South Pacific Ocean about northeast of New Zealand's North Island...
- Cosmophasis laticlavia (Thorell, 1892) — Sumatra
- Cosmophasis longiventris Simon, 1903 — VietnamVietnamVietnam – sometimes spelled Viet Nam , officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam – is the easternmost country on the Indochina Peninsula in Southeast Asia. It is bordered by China to the north, Laos to the northwest, Cambodia to the southwest, and the South China Sea –...
- Cosmophasis lucidiventris Simon, 1910 — GabonGabonGabon , officially the Gabonese Republic is a state in west central Africa sharing borders with Equatorial Guinea to the northwest, Cameroon to the north, and with the Republic of the Congo curving around the east and south. The Gulf of Guinea, an arm of the Atlantic Ocean is to the west...
- Cosmophasis maculiventris Strand, 1911 — Aru Islands
- Cosmophasis marxi (Thorell, 1890) — Sumatra, Java
- Cosmophasis masarangi Merian, 1911 — SulawesiSulawesiSulawesi is one of the four larger Sunda Islands of Indonesia and is situated between Borneo and the Maluku Islands. In Indonesia, only Sumatra, Borneo, and Papua are larger in territory, and only Java and Sumatra have larger Indonesian populations.- Etymology :The Portuguese were the first to...
- Cosmophasis micans (L. KochLudwig Carl Christian KochLudwig Carl Christian Koch was a German entomologist and arachnologist.He was born in Regensburg, Germany and died in Nuremberg, Germany. He studied in Nuremberg, initially law, but then turned to medicine and science...
, 1880) — QueenslandQueenslandQueensland is a state of Australia, occupying the north-eastern section of the mainland continent. It is bordered by the Northern Territory, South Australia and New South Wales to the west, south-west and south respectively. To the east, Queensland is bordered by the Coral Sea and Pacific Ocean... - Cosmophasis micarioides (L. Koch, 1880) — New Guinea, Queensland, Solomon IslandsSolomon IslandsSolomon Islands is a sovereign state in Oceania, east of Papua New Guinea, consisting of nearly one thousand islands. It covers a land mass of . The capital, Honiara, is located on the island of Guadalcanal...
- Cosmophasis miniaceomicans (Simon, 1888) — Andaman IslandsAndaman IslandsThe Andaman Islands are a group of Indian Ocean archipelagic islands in the Bay of Bengal between India to the west, and Burma , to the north and east...
- Cosmophasis modesta (L. Koch, 1880) — Queensland
- Cosmophasis monacha (Thorell, 1881) — New Guinea
- Cosmophasis muralis Berry, Beatty & Prószyński, 1997 — Caroline Islands
- Cosmophasis nigrocyanea (Simon, 1885) — EgyptEgyptEgypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...
, Ethiopia - Cosmophasis obscura (Keyserling, 1882) — Queensland
- Cosmophasis olorina (Simon, 1901) — Sri LankaSri LankaSri Lanka, officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka is a country off the southern coast of the Indian subcontinent. Known until 1972 as Ceylon , Sri Lanka is an island surrounded by the Indian Ocean, the Gulf of Mannar and the Palk Strait, and lies in the vicinity of India and the...
- Cosmophasis orsimoides StrandEmbrik StrandEmbrik Strand was an arachnologist who classified many insect and spider species, including the greenbottle blue tarantula....
, 1911 — Kei Islands - Cosmophasis parangpilota Barrion & Litsinger, 1995 — Philippines
- Cosmophasis psittacina (Thorell, 1887) — Myanmar
- Cosmophasis pulchella Caporiacco, 1947 — Ethiopia
- Cosmophasis quadricincta (Simon, 1885) — SingaporeSingaporeSingapore , officially the Republic of Singapore, is a Southeast Asian city-state off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, north of the equator. An island country made up of 63 islands, it is separated from Malaysia by the Straits of Johor to its north and from Indonesia's Riau Islands by the...
- Cosmophasis quadrimaculata Lawrence, 1942 — South Africa
- Cosmophasis risbeci Berland, 1938 — New Hebrides
- Cosmophasis squamata Kulczyński, 1910 — Solomon Islands, SeychellesSeychellesSeychelles , officially the Republic of Seychelles , is an island country spanning an archipelago of 115 islands in the Indian Ocean, some east of mainland Africa, northeast of the island of Madagascar....
- Cosmophasis strandi Caporiacco, 1947 — East Africa
- Cosmophasis thalassinaCosmophasis thalassinaCosmophasis thalassina is a species of jumping spider found from Malaysia to Australia. It was probably dispersed to gardens and parks of Queensland by man.-Description:...
(C. L. KochCarl Ludwig KochCarl Ludwig Koch was a German entomologist and arachnologist. He was responsible for classifying a great number of spiders, including the Brazilian whiteknee tarantula and Common house spider. He was born in Kusel, Germany and died in Nuremberg, Germany.Carl Ludwig Koch was an inspector of water...
, 1846) — Malaysia to Australia - Cosmophasis tricincta Simon, 1910 — BiokoBiokoBioko is an island 32 km off the west coast of Africa, specifically Cameroon, in the Gulf of Guinea. It is the northernmost part of Equatorial Guinea with a population of 124,000 and an area of . It is volcanic with its highest peak the Pico Basile at .-Geography:Bioko has a total area of...
- Cosmophasis trioipina Barrion & Litsinger, 1995 — Philippines
- Cosmophasis umbraticaCosmophasis umbraticaCosmophasis umbratica is a species of jumping spider that occurs from India to Sumatra.They are most frequently spotted on plants that are exposed to sunlight during later morning and early afternoon....
Simon, 1903 — IndiaIndiaIndia , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
to Sumatra - Cosmophasis viridifasciata (DoleschallCarl Ludwig DoleschallCarl Ludwig Doleschall was born in Nové Mesto nad Váhom , Slovakia , as the son of the theologian Michael Doleschall, and died in Ambon Island, Moluccas, only 31 years old...
, 1859) — Sumatra to New Guinea - Cosmophasis weyersi (Simon, 1899) — Sumatra