Spider ID. Funnel web? (pics)

[Ganoderma]

I was out this weekend for a hike and ran across this guy (and a few friends). i decided to collect one. Its about 1.5cm long (body), maybe 3 cm with legs? collected in southern taiwan around 1000 or less meters. this was an over grown hillside tree farm with lots of leaf litter and rocks, they were under them with cool webs that formed a funnel. in one day she completely filled the collection jar with web. i will get pics of her new home once she reconstructs her web.

 

[pandinus]

yes that is definitely some sort of myglamorphic funnelweb.

 

[beetleman]

yeah, by the looks of those spinnerets definitly,looks very much like my chinese black funnelweb.....very awesome spider

 

[Ganoderma]

its jar is now filled with web...i am pretty amazed how much web the thing has! i am trying to get better pictures of the eyes bu tthis thing is FAST, and due to the unknown identity i am being very carefull with this guy.

does anyone know of any keys to this group? I am 90% positive the fangs go up and down, this means could be a funnel web right?

I will try and get better photos. is there anything that would help in an ID? such as eyes and....?

thanks for the look

 

[Ganoderma]

couple more photos. he/she was a "little" more calm today. perhaps as slow as a H. lividum, or so.... thank god they suck at climbing glass/plastic.
I havnt found any keys yet but perhaps it is Macrothele simplicata?

 

[Randolph XX()]

could be macrothele taiwanensis

 

[pandinus]

how hot are these compared to their australian cousins?

 

[Randolph XX()]

this is actually too small to bite u
but not M.gigas
Kyle
the one with stripes could be M.taiwanensis
could also be Macrothele simplicata if there's no stripes

 

[Bastian Drolshagen]

hi, who says this one is adult? Could be almost every Macrothele sp. from Taiwan. You´ve gotta look if there´s a lyra or not and so on...(when it´s grown up).
I ided my Macrothele sp. ex. "HongKong", which was considered to be M. raveni as M. monocirculata. Sometimes it´s not easy to distinguish between the species.
BTW.: There´re several species of Macrothele showing a backpattern for example M. bannaensis or palpator. Just in case this is ment by stripes.
Here a pic of my M. monocirculata:

 

[Ganoderma]

Excellent thanks!

do you know of any keys to identifying specie?

 

[Randolph XX()]

well, there's only gigas can grow to large size in Taiwan, and every other sps in Taiwan are way lot smaller than that

hey kyle
i don't have it with me
but i remember the local common spider book has it, cuz it is considered as common species

 

[Ganoderma]

happen to know the name of the book? chinese or english?

i am going to order "An Introduction to the Spiders of South East Asia" Heard anything good/bad about it?

Thanks for the pointers. One of the places i go hiking has some very large (sometimes maybe a square meter of surface area) sheet like funnels. within the next couple week i will go explore and see what makes them. it is for sure a large spider as teh holes are often the size of a taiwan $50 coin (or the size of a $2 coin in canada).

thanks for the help.

 

[Randolph XX()]

i don't really suggest collecting such a large speciment
cuz they could be 30-40 years old since the growth rate is ubber slow(there was a batch of Cbs spiderlings from 02, and it is still about 2" in captivity, so imagine how long it will take to reach 6" in the wild)
and it is not that easy to keep them in cool temp as in the mountain when u're down in Pingdon
also feeding them too much will kill them apparently, and i am not even sure how less often should we feed them compare to common spiders in the hobby
Just in general, we know too lill about keeping them in captivity and it is such a waste to lose a creature in our hand that has been thriving in the wild older than i am , just like cutting down a 400 year old tree to make furnitures is simply wierd to me
the book name is "the picture book of common spiders in taiwan"

 

[John Apple]

What about M. calpieana....possible:? id

 

[Randolph XX()]

No, M.calpieana is southern European species which won't be found on a small island in east asia

 

[Ganoderma]

Good points. A photo shoot is still in order though.

the webs i saw were fairly low altitude and in the summer were certainly in the mid 30's. they were also on teh sunny side of roads, perhaps they are fairly tolerant of temperatures? guess need to see what they are first.

 

[Bastian Drolshagen]

In 2000 the genus Macrothele (in china) was revised. After that date only 4 other species were described.
Take a look at those:

Zhu, M. S., T. H. Li & D. X. Song. A new species of the genus Macrothele (Araneae: Hexathelidae) from China. J. Hubei Univ. 20: 358-361.

Xu, X. & C. M. Yin. (2001b). A new species of the genus Macrothele from China (Araneae: Hexathelidae). J. nat. Sci. Hunan norm. Univ. 24: 65-66, 72.

Xu, X. & C. M. Yin. (2000b). A new species of genus Macrothele (Araneae: Hexathelidae) from China. Acta Laser Biol. Sinica 9: 200-202.

Xu, X., C. M. Yin & C. E. Griswold. A new species of the spider genus Macrothele from the Gaoligong Mountains, Yunnan, China (Araneae: Hexathelidae). Pan-Pacif. Ent. 78: 116-119.

Zhu, M. S. & D. X. Song. (2000b). Review of the Chinese funnel-web spiders of the genus Macrothele, with descriptions of two new species (Araneae: Hexathelidae). Raffles Bull. Zool. 48: 59-64.

You don´t need that book to id the spider...much too expensive ^^

 

[Randolph XX()]

well Kyle
gigas are pretty widely distrubuted, can be ranged from 1300m altitude to the reef shore of Kenting,but still they live in the holes which are extended to cooler spot(like the PVC pipe in the mountain slope, and it is lot cooler than mid 30s if it's in there), and i reckon a foto shoot or even just toss in a bug as a gift for the spider would be way nicer
Improver
The Macrothele in Taiwan cannot be found in China , but in southern Japanese island, and i don't think they are allowed to do research in Taiwan so i don' think the refernces u offer would be helpful for Kyle's identification
i would say papers from Japan would be much suitable for this subject

 

[Ganoderma]

I went out today and they are certainly not anything even in teh family. I did find more of teh ones i posted photos of though, they seem rather plentifull in this area. my little guy has settled down in his web waiting for food.

 

[Bastian Drolshagen]

hi,
@Randolph: With the id-key given in the revision it´s possible to id M. simplicata, M. taiwanensis etc. So it fits for taiwanese species. The 4 other papers are the descriptions of the 4 Macrothele sp. described after 2000 (after the revision was published). So with those 5 papers it surely is possible to id any asian Macrothele sp.