''Cantuaria stephenensis'' is a species of

trapdoor spider Trapdoor spider is a common name that is used to refer to various spiders from several different groups that create burrows with a silk-hinged trapdoor to help them ambush prey. Several families within the infraorder Mygalomorphae contain trapdoo ...

endemic to

New Zealand New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island count ...

Taxonomy

This species was described in 1968 by

Ray Forster Raymond Robert Forster (19 June 1922 – 1 July 2000) was a New Zealand arachnologist and museum director. He was a Fellow of the Entomological Society of New Zealand. Biography Forster was born in Hastings, New Zealand in 1922, and was educat ...

from female specimens collected on Stephen Island. The holotype is stored at Canterbury Museum.

Description

The female is recorded at 15mm in length. The carapace and legs are orange brown. The abdomen has a chevron pattern dorsally.

Distribution

This species is only known from Stephen Island in New Zealand.

Conservation status

Under the

New Zealand Threat Classification System The New Zealand Threat Classification System is used by the Department of Conservation to assess conservation priorities of species in New Zealand. The system was developed because the IUCN Red List, a similar conservation status system, had some ...

, this species is listed as Data Deficient with the qualifiers of "Data Poor: Size" and "Data Poor: Trend".

References

Spiders of New Zealand Spiders described in 1968 stephenensis {{Mygalomorphae-stub