Misumessus Explained
Misumessus is a genus of North American and Caribbean crab spiders first described by Nathan Banks in 1904. They look similar to members of Misumena, but are much spinier.[1] It was considered a monotypic genus until 2017,[2] but its taxonomic standing has been debated throughout the 20th century, first as a synonym of Misumenops,[3] then later as its subgenus.[4] It was raised to genus status in 2008,[5] but has still been confused with similar genera, some of which were only known by character descriptions made by Eugène Simon nearly fifty years earlier.
Species
it contains seven species:[6]
- Misumessus bishopae Edwards, 2017 – Puerto Rico, Dominica, Grenadines
- Misumessus blackwalli Edwards, 2017 – Bermuda
- Misumessus dicaprioi Edwards, 2017 – USA
- Misumessus lappi Edwards, 2017 – USA
- Misumessus oblongus (Keyserling, 1880) – Canada, USA
- Misumessus quinteroi Edwards, 2017 – Central America, Caribbean
- Misumessus tamiami Edwards, 2017 – USA
Notes and References
- Banks. N.. 1904. New genera and species of Nearctic spiders. Journal of the New York Entomological Society. 12. 109–119.
- Edwards. G. B.. 2017. Revision of Misumessus (Thomisidae: Thomisinae: Misumenini), with observations on crab spider terminology. Journal of Arachnology. 45. 3. 296–323. 10.1636/JoA-S-17-025.1. 90623800.
- Petrunkevitch. A.. 1911. A synonymic index-catalogue of spiders of North, Central and South America with all adjacent islands, Greenland, Bermuda, West Indies, Terra del Fuego, Galapagos, etc.. Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History. 29.
- Schick. R. X.. 1965. The crab spiders of California (Araneae, Thomisidae) . Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History. 129. 111.
- Lehtinen. P. T.. Marusik. Y. M.. 2008. A redefinition of Misumenops F. O. Pickard-Cambridge, 1900 (Araneae, Thomisidae) and review of the New World species. Bulletin of the British Arachnological Society. 14. 173–198.
- Web site: Thomisidae. World Spider Catalog. Natural History Museum Bern. 2019-02-08.
