''Cheiracanthium erraticum'', the two-clawed hunting spider, is a species of

Palearctic The Palearctic or Palaearctic is the largest of the eight biogeographic realms of the Earth. It stretches across all of Eurasia north of the foothills of the Himalayas, and North Africa. The realm consists of several bioregions: the Euro-Si ...

spider of the family

Cheiracanthiidae ''Cheiracanthiidae'' is a family of araneomorph spiders first described by Vladimir Wagner in 1887. The synonym Eutichuridae was used for a long time, but Cheiracanthiidae has priority. The largest genus currently recognized as belonging to this ...

Description

Females have a body length of 8–9 mm, males 5-6.5mm. C. erraticum is a distinctively marked spider which shows a wide dark red stripe running down the centre of the abdomen, which is in turn surrounded by an area of creamy-yellow while the head is a reddish brown.

Distribution

The species has a

distribution, from

Ireland Ireland ( ; ga, Éire ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe, north-western Europe. It is separated from Great Britain to its east by the North Channel (Grea ...

to east Asia.

Habitat

This species favours the herbaceous layer and low bush layer of open habitats, such as rough heather. In Britain the altitudinal range is from sea level to 700 m.

Biology

In early summer ''C. erraticum'' builds a retreat made from two or three leaves or grass heads which are stitched together to hold the female and her egg sac. Later in the year, the immature spiders, which are already showing the reddish median stripe on the abdomen, can be found in small silk cells on plant stems. Adult males are encountered mostly in late spring and early summer while the adult females are mostly found from late spring to the autumn. The

spider wasp Wasps in the family Pompilidae are commonly called spider wasps, spider-hunting wasps, or pompilid wasps. The family is cosmopolitan, with some 5,000 species in six subfamilies. Nearly all species are solitary (with the exception of some group- ...

Homonotus sanguinolentus ''Homonotus sanguinolentus'', the bloody spider-hunting wasp is a European species of Pompilid wasp. Biology ''Homonotus sanguinolentus'' preys on one species of spider, '' Cheiracanthium erraticum'', which lives on the damper patches of heathlan ...

'' is a rare species which is wholly dependent on ''

Cheiracanthium ''Cheiracanthium'', commonly called ''yellow sac spiders'', is a genus of araneomorph spiders in the family Cheiracanthiidae, and was first described by Carl Ludwig Koch in 1839. They are usually pale in colour, and have an abdomen that can ran ...

'' spiders and in Britain is wholly dependent on ''C. erraticum''. The

ichneumonid The Ichneumonidae, also known as the ichneumon wasps, Darwin wasps, or ichneumonids, are a family of parasitoid wasps of the insect order Hymenoptera. They are one of the most diverse groups within the Hymenoptera with roughly 25,000 species cur ...

wasp ''

Schizopyga podagrica ''Schizopyga'' is a genus of ichneumon wasps in the family Ichneumonidae. There are about 10 described species in ''Schizopyga''. Species These 10 species belong to the genus ''Schizopyga'': * '' Schizopyga anseli'' Fernandez, 2007 * '' Schizopy ...

'' is another parasitoid of ''C. erraticum''.

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q1649192 erraticum Spiders of Europe Palearctic spiders Spiders described in 1802