''Gasteracantha hecata'' is a species of

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 ...

in the spiny orb-weaver genus '' Gasteracantha''. It occurs in the Philippines and has prominent horn-like spines on its abdomen.

Distribution

''Gasteracantha hecata'' occurs in the

Philippines The Philippines (; fil, Pilipinas, links=no), officially the Republic of the Philippines ( fil, Republika ng Pilipinas, links=no), * bik, Republika kan Filipinas * ceb, Republika sa Pilipinas * cbk, República de Filipinas * hil, Republ ...

. In 1914,

Friedrich Dahl Karl Friedrich Theodor Dahl (June 24, 1856 in Rosenhofer Brök north of Dahme, Holstein – June 29, 1929 in Greifswald) was a German zoologist, and in particular an arachnologist. The son of a farmer, Dahl studied at the universities of Leipzi ...

noted specimens from

Manila Manila ( , ; fil, Maynila, ), officially the City of Manila ( fil, Lungsod ng Maynila, ), is the capital of the Philippines, and its second-most populous city. It is highly urbanized and, as of 2019, was the world's most densely populate ...

Luzon Luzon (; ) is the largest and most populous island in the Philippines. Located in the northern portion of the Philippines archipelago, it is the economic and political center of the nation, being home to the country's capital city, Manila, as ...

, and

Samar Samar ( ) is the third-largest and seventh-most populous island in the Philippines, with a total population of 1,909,537 as of the 2020 census. It is located in the eastern Visayas, which are in the central Philippines. The island is divided in ...

in the Natural History Museum, Berlin collection.

Description

Female ''G. hecata'' orb-weavers have hard, shiny yellow-and-black abdomens that are about twice as wide as long and armed with two pairs of spines. The anterior pair is tiny and sharply pointed, but the second pair is long, horn-like, and covered with short bristles. These spines curve gently backward, giving the animals a crescent-like shape. Notably, this species lacks a third pair of spines on the posterior edge of its abdomen (most ''Gasteracantha'' species have six spines). The male of this species has not been scientifically described.

Charles Athanase Walckenaer Baron Charles Athanase Walckenaer (25 December 1771 – 28 April 1852) was a French civil servant and scientist. Biography Walckenaer was born in Paris and studied at the universities of University of Oxford, Oxford and University of Glasgow ...

described this species (in 1841, as ''Plectana hecata'') based on drawings and notes found in

James Petiver James Petiver (c. 1665 – c. 2 April 1718) was a London apothecary, a fellow of the Royal Society as well as London's informal Temple Coffee House Botany Club, famous for his specimen collections in which he traded and study of botany and entomo ...

's early 18th-century ''Gazophylacium naturae et artis''. Petiver himself had based his work on designs sent to him from Luzon by Czech Jesuit and naturalist Georg Joseph Kamel. In 1844,

Carl Ludwig Koch Carl Ludwig Koch (21 September 1778 – 23 August 1857) 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 bo ...

described and illustrated a species he called ''Gasteracantha falcifera'' from a single specimen housed at the natural history museum in Berlin. By 1914, there were several specimens in Berlin, and Dahl determined that the descriptions from Petiver, Walckenaer, and Koch, as well as the specimens he examined himself, should all be treated as one species, ''Gasteracantha hecata''.

''Gasteracantha parangdiadesmia''

In a 1995 book, ''Riceland Spiders of South and Southeast Asia,'' A.T. Barrion and J.A. Litsinger described a spider from Luzon that they named ''Gasteracantha parangdiadesmia''. Their description and illustration closely match 18th-, 19th-, and 20th-century descriptions and figures of ''G. hecata,'' but the authors do not reference ''G. hecata'' nor explain how their specimen differs from that species. ''G. parangdiadesmia'' is currently accepted as a valid species by the

World Spider Catalog The World Spider Catalog (WSC) is an online searchable database concerned with spider taxonomy. It aims to list all accepted families, genera and species, as well as provide access to the related taxonomic literature. The WSC began as a series of ...

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q2295740 hecata Spiders of Asia Spiders described in 1841