''Hickmania'' is a

monotypic In biology, a monotypic taxon is a taxonomic group (taxon) that contains only one immediately subordinate taxon. A monotypic species is one that does not include subspecies or smaller, infraspecific taxa. In the case of genera, the term "unispec ...

genus Genus ( plural genera ) is a taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of extant taxon, living and fossil organisms as well as Virus classification#ICTV classification, viruses. In the hierarchy of biological classification, genus com ...

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...

cribellate Cribellum literally means "little sieve", and in biology the term generally applies to anatomical structures in the form of tiny perforated plates. In certain groups of diatoms it refers to microscopically punctured regions of the frustule, or o ...

araneomorph The Araneomorphae (also called the Labidognatha) are an infraorder of spiders. They are distinguishable by chelicerae (fangs) that point diagonally forward and cross in a pinching action, in contrast to the Mygalomorphae (tarantulas and their cl ...

spiders in the family

Gradungulidae Gradungulidae, also known as large-clawed spiders, is a spider family endemic to Australia and New Zealand. They are medium to large-sized haplogyne spiders with three claws and two pairs of book-lungs similar to Mygalomorphae. Some species build ...

, containing only the Tasmanian cave spider (''Hickmania troglodytes''). The genus was first described by

Willis J. Gertsch Willis John Gertsch (October 4, 1906 – December 12, 1998) was an American arachnologist. He described over 1,000 species of spiders, scorpions, and other arachnids, including the Brown recluse spider and the Tooth cave spider. Gertsch was born ...

in 1958, and has been found only in

Tasmania ) , nickname = , image_map = Tasmania in Australia.svg , map_caption = Location of Tasmania in AustraliaCoordinates: , subdivision_type = Country , subdi ...

. It is the last of an old

Gondwana Gondwana () was a large landmass, often referred to as a supercontinent, that formed during the late Neoproterozoic (about 550 million years ago) and began to break up during the Jurassic period (about 180 million years ago). The final stages ...

n lineage, long since separated from its closest relatives in

South America South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere at the northern tip of the continent. It can also be described as the southe ...

. It is an icon species for faunal conservation in Tasmania, and is named in honor of V. V. Hickman, a professor at the

University of Tasmania The University of Tasmania (UTAS) is a public research university, primarily located in Tasmania, Australia. Founded in 1890, it is Australia's fourth oldest university. Christ College, one of the university's residential colleges, first pro ...

, who specialized in spiders. The species name is derived from the

Ancient Greek Ancient Greek includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Dark Ages (), the Archaic peri ...

(''troglodytes''), meaning "cave-dweller".

Description

Tasmanian cave spiders have red to brown carapaces and duller, darker brown

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 a ...

e. They can grow up to long, and can have a legspan of up to . These primitive spiders use

book lung A book lung is a type of respiration organ used for atmospheric gas exchange that is present in many arachnids, such as scorpions and spiders. Each of these organs is located inside an open ventral abdominal, air-filled cavity (atrium) and conn ...

s to breathe, seen as four light patches beneath the abdomen. Males are smaller than females, and have a distinct kink-like curve near the end of each second leg used to hold the female's head while mating. Neural arrangement in the pedipalps of male ''H. troglodytes'' is almost identical to the neural arrangement in the pedipalps of male running crab spiders ''

Philodromus cespitum ''Philodromus cespitum'' is a species of running crab spider in the family ''Philodromidae.'' It is found in North America, Europe, North Africa, and parts of the Middle East and Asia. ''P. cespitum'' is a foliage-dweller, and is the most abundan ...

.''Sentenská, Lenka; Müller, Carsten H.G.; Pekár, Stano; Uhl, Gabriele (December 2017). "Neurons and a sensory organ in the pedipalps of male spiders reveal that it is not a numb structure". ''Scientific Reports''. 7 (1): 12209.

Bibcode The bibcode (also known as the refcode) is a compact identifier used by several astronomical data systems to uniquely specify literature references. Adoption The Bibliographic Reference Code (refcode) was originally developed to be used in SIM ...

:2017NatSR...712209S. doi:10.1038/s41598-017-12555-5. PMC 5610179.

PMID PubMed is a free search engine accessing primarily the MEDLINE database of references and abstracts on life sciences and biomedical topics. The United States National Library of Medicine (NLM) at the National Institutes of Health maintain the ...

28939892. Tasmanian cave spiders are widely distributed throughout Tasmania, found in many dark, cool areas, including underground drainage and cave systems, the underside of bridges, and inside hollow logs. They build sheet webs up to in diameter, and hang beneath it waiting for prey to fly or jump into their web. They have an unusually long lifetime for

spiders, sometimes living several decades.

References

External links

Tasmanian cave spider
at the

Australian Museum The Australian Museum is a heritage-listed museum at 1 William Street, Sydney central business district, New South Wales, Australia. It is the oldest museum in Australia,Design 5, 2016, p.1 and the fifth oldest natural history museum in the ...

website
More info + picture
{{Taxonbar, from=Q15197042, from2=Q2455533 Austrochilidae Spiders of Australia Invertebrates of Tasmania Cave spiders Monotypic Araneomorphae genera Taxa named by Willis J. Gertsch