Lamponoides coottha Platnick

 

      Type:  Female holotype taken in a pitfall trap in open forest on Mount Coot-tha, Brisbane, Queensland, 27°29'S, 152°57'E (Dec. 22--Jan. 17, 1980; R. Raven), deposited in QMB (S28101).

      Etymology:  The specific name is a noun in apposition taken from the type locality.

      Diagnosis:  Males can easily be recognized by the lack of a protuberant retrolateral tibial apophysis combined with a medially situated embolus (figs. 315, 316), females by the enormously elongated epigynum combined with the additional pair of posterior spermathecae (figs. 317, 318).

      Male:  Total length 4.1.  Abdominal dorsum with alternating series of dark and light transverse bands (thick dark anterior, mostly under scutum, followed posteriorly by thick light, thin dark, thin light, thin dark, and thick light); tibiae with incomplete dark rings at about two-thirds their length.  Palpal femur thick, unmodified; tibia without protuberant retrolateral tibial apophysis; embolus situated medially, distally hooked (figs. 315, 316).

      Female:  Total length 7.7.  Coloration as in male except anterior abdominal dark markings reduced, tibia IV with additional basal dark ring.  Epigynum heavily sclerotized, elongated, paralleling sclerotized sides of booklung covers, with four spermathecae (figs. 317, 318).

      Other Material Examined:  A single male taken in a pitfall trap set at an elevation of 1290 m at a site 0.25 km S of the junction of Tubrabucca and Omadale Brook Roads in Stewarts Brook State Forest, New South Wales, 31°54'S, 151°23'E (Feb. 4--Apr. 9, 1993; M. Gray, G. Cassis), deposited in AMS (KS40493).

      Distribution:  Known only from southeastern Queensland and New South Wales (map 37).

 

 

 

Figs. 315--318.  Lamponoides coottha Platnick.  315. Left male palp, ventral view.  316. Same, retrolateral view.  317. Epigynum, ventral view.  318. Same, dorsal view.

 

 

Map 37.  Records of Lamponoides coottha Platnick.