Thorelliola with 2 horns WITHOUT proboscis in males
[T. ensifera - comparison from various Islands ] [ "ensifera" from Pacific Islands ] [ ensifera by Zabka ] [ dumicola ][mahunkai] [ Scanning Microphotographs ]
Thorelliola with 2 horns ON proboscis in males
[ biapophysis ] [ biapophysis det J. Proszynski ] [ glabra ] [ javaensis ] [ trucilonga ]

Diagnoses of genera of South East Asia: Light or colourful, sometimes iridescent salticids. Shrubs, plants, especially broad leaved. General remarks: In the field, plants with large green leaves, such as ginger, are often favoured by salticids, particularly colourful species. Some are clothed with dense, coloured, iridescent hairs which makes them particularly attractive and conspicuous. They are often to be seen wandering about or sunning themselves on top of the leaves and sometimes to be found resting or in a cell under a leaf. Salticids often build a retreat between and attached to two closely overlapping leaves. With care and a suitably placed sweep net, one can often collect the owner. Genus: Thorelliola. See Koh, p. 118. Although this is a genus of small, dull coloured spiders, the male of the common species, T. ensifera, is easy to recognise in the field. Emerging from the centre of its clypeus and projecting forwards, there appears something which, at first glance, looks like a long, slender, miniature, rhinoceros horn. In fact this "horn" consists of two long, suitably shaped, spinelike setae, so close together that they appear as one. The two branches of this "horn" sometimes emerge from the clypeus individually and sometimes from a single trunk which divides. This gives rise to the possibility that two species are involved. The cephalothorax is quite high and short with the cephalus slightly convex and sloping very gradually downwards from the rear eyes. At first the thorax slopes downwards fairly steeply, and then almost vertically, to the posterior margin. The sides are vertical. In plan, the carapace is almost a broad U-shape but with slightly curved sides and a wide truncate posterior margin. The abdomen is oval with a wide rounded front and about the same size as the carapace. The legs are moderately spiny, quite long, slender, and all of much the same length. The eye surrounds are black with the shiny carapace orange-brown in colour, becoming dark brown on the sides and rear slope. The underlying colour of the abdomen is a muddy yellow with mottled dark brown on the sides and much of the rear. There are three small, circular, very white tufts of hair along the rear edge of the abdomen. The legs are brown with all the tarsi brownish-yellow and metatarsi II, III, IV brownish-yellow with brown annulations near the joints. The female is in general lighter in colour. There is a noticeable yellow, W-shaped, transverse band on the female abdomen, and the legs are all annulated.
Distribution: At present the three species of Thorelliola occur in the tropics from P. Malaysia to Australia and some Pacific Islands, and more species are known to exist. Murphy & Murphy 2000: 354. By courtesy of the Authors' and the Malaysian Nature Society.

Copyright © for the page by J. Proszynski, 2000.