# Linothele sp bolivia=Linothele fallax?



## melanie5 (Dec 4, 2007)

Are these the same spiders? I have 1, which was sold to me as Linothele sp bolivia. I've found some info on the web, but it's mostly called fallax.
Anyone else here who has these spiders?


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## Bastian Drolshagen (Dec 5, 2007)

hi,
I´ve been working on that genus for a certain time by now and hopefully will finish my work soon.
The first species I examined was that Linothele sp. from Bolivia and it completely fits Linothele fallax. The shape of the spermathecae is (at least in some groups within the genus) pretty evident, and the spermathecae of the Linothele sp. "Bolivia" completely fits the drawing given in Bücherl, W., A Timotheo da Costa & S. Lucas (1971): Revisão de alguns tipos de aranhas caranguejeiras (Orthognatha) estabelecidos por Candido de Mello-Leitão e depositados no Museu Nacional do Rio. Mems Inst. Butantan 35: 131 fig. 10.
The first description is quite poor, but describes the outer appearance of the spider, which would also fit Linothele sp. "Bolivia". 
Unfortunately Dr. Brescovit told me that the holotype of Linothele fallax is (probably) lost, so I have to see if I manage to get some other material from the region Linothele fallax has been described for (western Brazil, near the border to Peru; got the exact data, but won´t post it here  ).


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## melanie5 (Dec 5, 2007)

So the chance is that these 2 are actually one and the same. I got my spider from Germany, so it was probably bred in captivity. 
What do you think is the right name?


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## Bastian Drolshagen (Dec 5, 2007)

hi,
we´ve got only 4 species of Linothele in the hobby in Germany at the moment:
Linothele megatheloides
Linothele fallax
and two others I don´t want to mention here at the moment 

Linothele fallax can be distinguished from all other by their outer appearance. So if you´ve got a specimen that looks like this:





or that (same specimen as above but older):






You probably have Linothele fallax.


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## melanie5 (Dec 5, 2007)

Hi
Mine looks exactle like the one in the first picture. I've had him for 4 months now and he's molted once. His body is about 2,5 cm (1 inch) and the legspan is about 5cm (2 inches) as far as I can see through all the webbing
I'm very curious at your research. I hope to hear the outcome when you've finished.
I like this spider very much. He (or she, don't know) is a big eater and extremely fast. The webbing is beautiful.
(btw, I can also wright in German if you prefer)


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## Bastian Drolshagen (Dec 5, 2007)

hi,
since most users here are based in english speaking countries I prefer continuing writing in English, so everyboday can follow the thread 

If you´ve got a moult of your specimen you can already check on its gender --> Spermathecae consist of two receptacula seminis with a prolateral spiralformed "lobe" at apical third each (picture can be found in the ID-key, and in the taxonomy gallery on my homepage  ).
When the spider is not adult yet (it probably isn´t) the spermathecae can be hard to discover, since it is almost transparent and becomes better visible (more sclerotized) with each moult.

At the moment I´m keeping an ultimate female including all her offspring in a 30 X 40 X 30 cm tank. They´re webbing it all up at the moment. But this web is even topped by the one my Linothele megatheloides produced:


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## melanie5 (Dec 6, 2007)

I still have the molt, but it's really dried out, so I can't see. Spider doesn't look like he's going to molt soon. Last molt was in Octobre.

off topic: do you by any chance sell any true spiders? I'm looking for some Lycosa spiders


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## Bastian Drolshagen (Dec 11, 2007)

hi,
if you want, you can send me the moult and I´m going to see what I can do 
Sry, I don´t have any Lycosidae.


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## melanie5 (Dec 11, 2007)

Hi
That would be great. Can you send me your adress? Anything special about how to pakkage it? I'll put it in an box, but I may need to put something with it to keep it from breaking, cause it's really dry.


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## Bastian Drolshagen (Dec 11, 2007)

hi,
nothing special about it - can break during shipping, I only need the skin of the opisthosoma 
adress via PM..


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## melanie5 (Dec 11, 2007)

Molt is on it's way. Thanks a lot in advance


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