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Meta Bourneti
''Meta bourneti'' is an orb weaving cave spider closely related to '' Meta menardi''. Morphology Big sized spider (body length male: 10–13 mm; female: 13–16 mm), very similar in the external morphology to the congeneric '' Meta menardi.'' The prosoma is red-brown, with darker margin. Legs are red-brown. The opisthosoma is yellowish, laterally often completely black. Ecology Usually found in caves, in the twilight-zone. The species show a preference for cave walls and roofs, where it spin its orb-web. ''M. bourneti'' is able to consume a wide variety of prey items, including dipterans, moths, centipedes, woodlouse, and other cave-dwelling spiders. Phenology Female and juveniles are observed all year round. Males are rare, and usually found from August to December. The eggsac (cocoon) is white, drop-shaped, and very similar to that of ''M. menardi'' (see ). It is usually laid in the proximity of the cave entrance between October and November. The spiderlings ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Eugène Simon
Eugène Louis Simon (; 30 April 1848 – 17 November 1924) was a French naturalist who worked particularly on insects and spiders, but also on birds and plants. He is by far the most prolific spider taxonomist in history, describing over 4,000 species. Work on spiders His most significant work was ''Histoire Naturelle des Araignées'' (1892–1903), an encyclopedic treatment of the spider genera of the world. It was published in two volumes of more than 1000 pages each, and the same number of drawings by Simon. Working at the Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle in Paris, it took Simon 11 years to complete, while working at the same time on devising a taxonomic scheme that embraced the known taxa. Simon described a total of 4,650 species, and as of 2013 about 3,790 species are still considered valid. The International Society of Arachnology offers a Simon Award recognising lifetime achievement. The Eocene fossil spider species '' Cenotextricella simoni'' was named in his ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Spider Web
A spider web, spiderweb, spider's web, or cobweb (from the archaic word '' coppe'', meaning "spider") is a structure created by a spider out of proteinaceous spider silk extruded from its spinnerets, generally meant to catch its prey. Spider webs have existed for at least 100 million years, as witnessed in a rare find of Early Cretaceous amber from Sussex, in southern England. Many spiders build webs specifically to trap and catch insects to eat. However, not all spiders catch their prey in webs, and some do not build webs at all. "Spider web" is typically used to refer to a web that is apparently still in use (i.e. clean), whereas "cobweb" refers to abandoned (i.e. dusty) webs. However, the word "cobweb" is also used by biologists to describe the tangled three-dimensional web of some spiders of the family Theridiidae. While this large family is known as the cobweb spiders, they actually have a huge range of web architectures; other names for this spider family include tangl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Spider
Spiders ( order Araneae) are air-breathing arthropods that have eight legs, chelicerae with fangs generally able to inject venom, and spinnerets that extrude silk. They are the largest order of arachnids and rank seventh in total species diversity among all orders of organisms. Spiders are found worldwide on every continent except for Antarctica, and have become established in nearly every land habitat. , 50,356 spider species in 132 families have been recorded by taxonomists. However, there has been debate among scientists about how families should be classified, with over 20 different classifications proposed since 1900. Anatomically, spiders (as with all arachnids) differ from other arthropods in that the usual body segments are fused into two tagmata, the cephalothorax or prosoma, and the opisthosoma, or abdomen, and joined by a small, cylindrical pedicel, however, as there is currently neither paleontological nor embryological evidence that spiders ever had ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Meta Menardi
''Meta menardi'', the European cave spider, is a long-jawed orb-weaving spider (family Tetragnathidae). It is also known as the orbweaving cave spider, the cave orbweaver and, in context, simply the cave spider. Habitat They have a natural range extending from Scandinavia to North Africa and from Europe to Korea; there are also transplanted populations as far apart as Japan and Madagascar. The adult spiders are photophobic and live in places free from light, frequently in caves and tunnels, though they can sometimes be seen outside of caves and mines as they will emerge around dusk to hunt, often using a single silk lasso line and swinging down upon their prey. They are often found in areas that are frequented by bats. The spiders are most often observed in railway tunnels and mines since these are more likely to be visited by humans. The young spiders are, after several instars (and in contrast to the adults), strongly attracted to light—probably an evolutionary adaptati ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
BBC News
BBC News is an operational business division of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) responsible for the gathering and broadcasting of news and current affairs in the UK and around the world. The department is the world's largest broadcast news organisation and generates about 120 hours of radio and television output each day, as well as online news coverage. The service maintains 50 foreign news bureaus with more than 250 correspondents around the world. Deborah Turness has been the CEO of news and current affairs since September 2022. In 2019, it was reported in an Ofcom report that the BBC spent £136m on news during the period April 2018 to March 2019. BBC News' domestic, global and online news divisions are housed within the largest live newsroom in Europe, in Broadcasting House in central London. Parliamentary coverage is produced and broadcast from studios in London. Through BBC English Regions, the BBC also has regional centres across England and national news c ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Prosoma
The cephalothorax, also called prosoma in some groups, is a tagma of various arthropods, comprising the head and the thorax fused together, as distinct from the abdomen behind. (The terms ''prosoma'' and ''opisthosoma'' are equivalent to ''cephalothorax'' and ''abdomen'' in some groups.) The word ''cephalothorax'' is derived from the Greek words for head (, ') and thorax (, '). This fusion of the head and thorax is seen in chelicerates and crustaceans; in other groups, such as the Hexapoda (including insects), the head remains free of the thorax. In horseshoe crabs and many crustaceans, a hard shell called the carapace covers the cephalothorax. Arachnid anatomy Fovea The fovea is the centre of the cephalothorax and is located behind the head (only in spiders).Dalton, Steve (2008). ''Spiders; The Ultimate Predators''. A & C Black, London. P.p. 19. . It is often important in identification. It can be transverse or procurved Smith, A. M. (1990c). Baboon spiders: Tarantulas of Afr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Opisthosoma
The opisthosoma is the posterior part of the body in some arthropods, behind the prosoma (cephalothorax). It is a distinctive feature of the subphylum Chelicerata (arachnids, horseshoe crabs and others). Although it is similar in most respects to an abdomen (and is often referred to as such), the opisthosoma is differentiated by its inclusion of the respiratory organs (book lungs or book gills) and the heart. Segments The number of segments and appendages on the opisthosoma vary. Scorpions have 13, but the first is only seen during its embryological development. Other arachnids have fewer; harvestmen, for instance, have only ten. In general, appendages are absent or reduced, although in horseshoe crabs they persist as large plate-like limbs, called opercula or branchiophores, bearing the book gills, and that function in locomotion and gas exchange. In most chelicerates the opisthosomal limbs are greatly reduced and persist only as specialized structures, such as the silk-producing ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Terminator (solar)
A terminator or twilight zone is a moving line that divides the daylit side and the dark night side of a planetary body. The terminator is defined as the locus of points on a planet or moon where the line through the center of its parent star is tangent. An observer on the terminator of such an orbiting body with an atmosphere would experience twilight due to light scattering by particles in the gaseous layer. Earth's terminator On Earth, the terminator is a circle with a diameter that is approximately that of Earth. The terminator passes through any point on Earth's surface twice a day, at sunrise and at sunset, apart from polar regions where this only occurs when the point is not experiencing midnight sun or polar night. The circle separates the portion of Earth experiencing daylight from that experiencing darkness (night). While a little over one half of Earth is illuminated at any point in time (with exceptions during eclipses), the terminator path varies by time of d ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Europe
Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia and it is located entirely in the Northern Hemisphere and mostly in the Eastern Hemisphere. Comprising the westernmost peninsulas of Eurasia, it shares the continental landmass of Afro-Eurasia with both Africa and Asia. It is bordered by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, the Mediterranean Sea to the south and Asia to the east. Europe is commonly considered to be Boundaries between the continents of Earth#Asia and Europe, separated from Asia by the drainage divide, watershed of the Ural Mountains, the Ural (river), Ural River, the Caspian Sea, the Greater Caucasus, the Black Sea and the waterways of the Turkish Straits. "Europe" (pp. 68–69); "Asia" (pp. 90–91): "A commonly accepted division between Asia and E ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Georgia (country)
Georgia (, ; ) is a transcontinental country at the intersection of Eastern Europe and Western Asia. It is part of the Caucasus region, bounded by the Black Sea to the west, by Russia to the north and northeast, by Turkey to the southwest, by Armenia to the south, and by Azerbaijan to the southeast. The country covers an area of , and has a population of 3.7 million people. Tbilisi is its capital as well as its largest city, home to roughly a third of the Georgian population. During the classical era, several independent kingdoms became established in what is now Georgia, such as Colchis and Iberia. In the early 4th century, ethnic Georgians officially adopted Christianity, which contributed to the spiritual and political unification of the early Georgian states. In the Middle Ages, the unified Kingdom of Georgia emerged and reached its Golden Age during the reign of King David IV and Queen Tamar in the 12th and early 13th centuries. Thereafter, the kingdom decl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
North Africa
North Africa, or Northern Africa is a region encompassing the northern portion of the African continent. There is no singularly accepted scope for the region, and it is sometimes defined as stretching from the Atlantic shores of Mauritania in the west, to Egypt's Suez Canal. Varying sources limit it to the countries of Algeria, Libya, Morocco, and Tunisia, a region that was known by the French during colonial times as "''Afrique du Nord''" and is known by Arabs as the Maghreb ("West", ''The western part of Arab World''). The United Nations definition includes Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Sudan, and the Western Sahara, the territory disputed between Morocco and the Sahrawi Republic. The African Union definition includes the Western Sahara and Mauritania but not Sudan. When used in the term Middle East and North Africa (MENA), it often refers only to the countries of the Maghreb. North Africa includes the Spanish cities of Ceuta and Melilla, and plazas de s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tetragnathidae
Long-jawed orb weavers or long jawed spiders (Tetragnathidae) are a family of araneomorph spiders first described by Anton Menge in 1866. They have elongated bodies, legs, and chelicerae, and build small orb webs with an open hub with few, wide-set radii and spirals with no signal line or retreat. Some species are often found in long vegetation near water. Systematics , the World Spider Catalog accepts the following extant genera: *''Alcimosphenus'' Simon, 1895 — Caribbean *'' Allende'' Álvarez-Padilla, 2007 — Chile, Argentina *'' Antillognatha'' Bryant, 1945 — Hispaniola *'' Atelidea'' Simon, 1895 — Sri Lanka *'' Azilia'' Keyserling, 1881 — United States, Panama, South America, Caribbean *''Chrysometa'' Simon, 1894 — South America, Central America, Mexico, Caribbean *''Cyrtognatha'' Keyserling, 1881 — South America, Central America, Caribbean, Mexico *'' Dianleucauge'' Song & Zhu, 1994 — China *'' Diphya'' Nicolet, 1849 — Asia, South America, Africa *''Dolic ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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