Genus Barahna Davies, 2003

Museums

Regional Maps

• Barahna Davies, V.T. 2003. Barahna, a new spider genus from eastern Australia (Araneae: Amaurobioidea). Memoirs of the Queensland Museum 49: 237-250 [237-238].

  Type species:

   Barahna booloumba Davies, 2003 by original designation.

Introduction

The genus Barahna comprises eight species from eastern Australia. Barahna was originally placed only in the superfamily Amaurobioidea (Davies 2003) but has since been considered to be a stiphidiid, and is listed under this family by Platnick (2010). Barahna certainly shares some behavioural and eye characters with stiphidiid genera such as those in the Borralinae (see discussion in Gray & Smith 2008), but its affinities are far from clear.

Spiders in the genus Barahna make cribellate sheet webs with a small retreat under rocks, logs or at the base of trees. In common with several other stiphidiid genera, the spider runs on the underside of the sheet. The genus has been recorded from wet sclerophyll, vine scrub and open eucalypt forests, most records are from eastern Queensland and New South Wales.

Distribution

States

New South Wales, Queensland, Victoria

IBRA and IMCRA regions

IBRA

NSW, Qld, Vic: Brigalow Belt North (BBN), Brigalow Belt South (BBS), Naracoorte Coastal Plain (NCP), NSW North Coast (NNC), Sydney Basin (SB), South Eastern Queensland (SEQ)

General References

Davies, V.T. 2003. Barahna, a new spider genus from eastern Australia (Araneae: Amaurobioidea). Memoirs of the Queensland Museum 49: 237-250

Gray, M.R. & Smith, H.M. 2008. A new subfamily of spiders with grate-shaped tapeta from Australia and Papua New Guinea (Araneae: Stiphidiidae: Borralinae). Records of the Australian Museum 60: 13-44

Platnick, N. I. 2010. The world spider catalog, version 11.0. American Museum of Natural History. 11.0. http://research.amnh.org/entomology/spiders/catalog/index.html [This catalogue is updated regularly]

History of changes