Tamopsis facts for kids
Quick facts for kids Tamopsis |
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| Tamopsis brisbanensis | |
Scientific classification  |
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| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Arthropoda |
| Subphylum: | Chelicerata |
| Class: | Arachnida |
| Order: | Araneae |
| Infraorder: | Araneomorphae |
| Family: | Hersiliidae |
| Genus: | Tamopsis Baehr & Baehr, 1987 |
| Type species | |
| T. eucalypti (Rainbow, 1900)
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| Species | |
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50, see text |
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Tamopsis is a group of spiders known as genera. These spiders are often called tree trunk spiders because they live on tree trunks. They were first described by scientists B. Baehr and M. Baehr in 1987.
You might also hear them called two-tailed spiders. This name comes from their two long spinnerets, which are like small tubes spiders use to spin silk. The name Tamopsis comes from another spider group called Tama and an Ancient Greek word meaning "resembling." So, it means "resembling Tama."
Tamopsis spiders are different from Tama edwardsi in a few ways. For example, the male Tamopsis spiders have a more complex palpal bulb, which is a part of their leg used for mating. Most Tamopsis spiders live in trees. The spiders originally in the Tama group mostly live on the ground.
What Do Tamopsis Spiders Look Like?
Tamopsis spiders are small to medium-sized. For example, the female of the most well-known species, Tamopsis eucalypti, is about 7 millimetres (0.28 in) long. The males are a bit smaller, around 5 millimetres (0.20 in) long.
These spiders have very long rear spinnerets. These are the silk-spinning parts at the back of their body. In some Tamopsis species, these spinnerets can be even longer than the spider's main body!
Tamopsis spiders live in trees. They do not build big, complex webs like some other spiders. Instead, they often rely on their long legs to move around. Their legs are quite long, and the last part of their leg, called the metatarsus, is not divided.
Their mouthparts, called chelicerae, have three small teeth on the front edge. Male Tamopsis spiders have a special part on their palpal bulb that can be coiled or shaped like a hook or spoon. This part helps them during mating.
Different Kinds of Tamopsis Spiders
In 1987, two scientists, Barbara Baehr and Martin Baehr, studied the tree trunk spiders in Australia. They created the new group called Tamopsis. They described 25 new species of Tamopsis spiders at that time. They also moved two species that used to be in the Tama group into Tamopsis. They kept finding and describing more species in the years that followed, until 1998.
There are two Australian species, T. novaehollandiae and T. brachyura, that scientists are not sure about. This is because the original spider examples used to describe them were either young spiders or have been lost. This makes it hard to identify them correctly.
As of 2019, there are about fifty known Tamopsis species. Most of them are found in Australia and New Guinea. Here are a few examples:
- Tamopsis amplithorax – Found in Western Australia.
- Tamopsis arnhemensis – Found in Northern Territory and Queensland, Australia.
- Tamopsis brisbanensis – Found in Queensland and New South Wales, Australia.
- Tamopsis eucalypti – This is the most well-known type. It's found from Queensland to South Australia.
- Tamopsis fickerti – Found in Queensland, New South Wales, and Victoria, Australia.
- Tamopsis floreni – Found in Borneo.
- Tamopsis wau – Found in New Guinea.
See also
In Spanish: Tamopsis para niños
