Family MIMETIDAE Simon, 1881

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Introduction

These are robber or pirate spiders, 3-clawed spiders that enter the webs of other spiders to prey on them. All native Australian mimetid species were transferred to the genus Australomimetus by Harms and Harvey (2009a, b), thus removing the genus Mimetus from the Australian faunal list. The cosmopolitan genus Ero is represented in the region by a single, probably introduced, species.

Excluded Taxa

Misidentifications

MIMETIDAE: Mimetus Hentz, 1831

Diagnosis

Ecribellate 3-clawed araneioid spiders with legs extremely long, slender and prolateral tibiae and metatarsi I, II with a row of alternating short and long curved spines. They are characterised by a row of large curved spines interspersed with six to seven smaller spines along the prolateral margin of tibiae and metartarsi I and II; chelicerae long, slender, usually fused at the base; colulus present; and one trichobothrium on metatarsi, none on tarsi.

General References

Harms, D. & Harvey, M.S. 2009. A review of the pirate spiders of Tasmania (Arachnida, Mimetidae, Australomimetus) with description of a new species. Journal of Arachnology 37: 188-205

Harms, D. & Harvey, M.S. 2009. Australian pirates: systematics and phylogeny of the Australasian pirate spiders (Araneae: Mimetidae), with a description of the Western Australian fauna. Invertebrate Systematics 23: 231-280

History of changes