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Xysticus inornatus L. Koch, 1876 was originally described from a single female specimen from Sydney, Australia. After studying new material from the Australian Capital Territory, Dondale later transferred this species to Diaea and described the previously unknown male. Examination of the specimens studied by Dondale reveal that they belong to a different, and probably undescribed, species of Diaea. Detailed studies of the holotype of Xysticus inornatus and the type material of Diaea megagyna Evans, 1995 reveal that they are synonyms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Some crab spiders reflect UV-light, thereby creating a deceptive signal that attracts prey to the flowers that they sit on. We conducted a survey of several Australian and European species of crab spiders and found that UV-reflection is common in Australian species but absent from European species. Furthermore, honeybees are attracted to UV-reflecting Australian spiders while they are either indifferent to or repelled by European crab spiders. We do not know if UV-reflection evolved once or several times independently in crab spiders endemic to Australia or whether UV-reflective spiders arrived in Australia more recently. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract We characterized the population genetic structure of the Australian social spider Diaea ergandros using polymorphic allozyme markers. Our main objectives were to understand the social organization of D. ergandros and discern patterns of gene flow across distantly separated geographical areas. Spiders were sampled from nests located within 100 m wide locales, which were distributed within larger 50 km wide regions. Our results indicated that nestmates could have been produced by a single mother and father in 88.9% of D. ergandros nests. The remainder of nests contained spiders that were probably produced by polyandrous females or were immigrants from foreign nests. Nestmate relatedness was relatively high (r = 0.44) and did not differ significantly between the sexes or among juvenile, subadult and adult life stages. We also discovered that D. ergandros populations were highly structured, with significant differentiation detected among locales (F LR = 0.23) and regions (F RT = 0.081). Spiders within locales were also substantially inbred (F IL = 0.15). Overall, our data show that significant population subdivision exists in D. ergandros populations, and we suggest that the poor dispersal ability of Diaea spiders can account for the observed genetic structure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]