Anything but insects and spiders

I'm not entirely sure why the pedipalps are this size Tue. The Opilionids in NZ haven't really been studied since the early 1950s.

Given the dimorphism between sexes, it's likely large pedipalps are perceived as more attractive to females. Or it may be better for dominating other males. (He was waving those pedipalps at my camera aggressively when I was herding him back on the leaf). Anyway, there are lots of possible reasons but not really any research to back it up.

I've got some more photos of this stout-legged harvestmen to process, and some of a long-legged harvestman yet to come. Unlike spiders, the Opilionids are not poisonous.

Good to hear that you are getting into the spiders . I agree that they can be very attractive at a morphological level. There are lots of shapes, colours and textures on their bodies- which suit macro-photography. I'm often surprised by the number of people who are afraid of them.

Hry Tue, a friend who is generally not into spieders at all phoned me up the other day to say he had found a wonderfull spider, by the sound of it some kind of argiopae too. I couldnt beleive it when he told me but now it sounds like it is a genuine one. Don't beleive they dont hurt when they bite though. I can still remember when one got me (during pretty rough handling) when I was a child. I got quite a shock and it went for a short but unexpected flight.

chthoniid, gunny that they have such a vision orientated behaviour when their eyes are set so far back, the idea of them signalling with the pedipalps is great, if anyone finds out that they have similar behaviour to jumping spiders they will be all the rage for research again :). Shame noone has looked into them recently, facinating animals.

Just kidding about posting it (perhaps 1% serious), but so nice seeing things like that. There was a point when I sent some scorpions to a guy differentiating them by pcr and they turned up live, I wouldnt ask anyone to send though, if it turned up on a red list I should imagine its possible to get into a whole heap of trouble. I think denmark is almost exactly on the other side of the world so a fair way off too. If the harvest man wont go to mohommed it looks like it may be a case of having to go to the spider:)

Tim

Wow, that's one very interesting spider(?)! How small is it?

I think it is better that I refuse to acknowledge that such creatures exist in NZ. I do want to get some sleep at night.

Okay, as promised/threatened this is first of my long-legged harvestman series.

It is of course, another Opilionid.


Link to larger image
Original crop: 1600x1278 pixels

This arachnid has very different pedipalps to the one above. These are both very hairy and its got a long thumb growing out of the pedipalps. I have never seen anything quite like this on an arthropod before.    

You can see the smaller 3 segmented chelicerae the animal bites between the pedipalps.

It has the standard 2 eyes on a mound on top of the carapace.

This guy was about 3-4mm long (body-wise) so the extra magnification has come from a Raynox 12x adapter (I didn't get many keepers). Shots are hand-held with lighting from a Sigma EM-140 flash.

Let the weirdness continue

Grooming the legs takes a long time

Link to larger image


Link to larger image

Thanks dogears.

The NZ opilionid fauna is often very archaic in form, not just odd .

I have to say that I've seen a lot of microscopic creatures but nothing quite as strange as the long-legged harvestmen above. I can't even begin to classify it...

So, Dyxum is highly likely to be the first group of people ever to have seen this species. That doesn't happen every day surely?