Phrynarachne rugosa (Latreille, 1804)

There are a great many things that can distract me when I am pulling Lantana camara seedlings, saplings and assorted other -ings out of the ground (read more about the horror of Lantana camara everywhere outside of its native range here (wiki link), and if, living outside of South and Central America, you even think of adding it to your garden, I quite unreservedly loathe you).

This very nearly failed to distract me:

Photographed in December 2013 in Chongwe, Lusaka, Zambia, using Olympus E-420 DSLR, Zuiko 40-150mm lens and 3 KOOD magnifiers.

I'm hoping that you, as I did, initially dismissed it as the source of my prickly troubles - just another berry-filled bird-dropping. Having recognised it as a spider, however, I find the resemblance to a bird dropping much harder to see, and have to wonder whether it was ever as convincing as I thought.

But there we go. This, unless I am tragically mistaken, is a member of the widespread Paleotropical <is that a word?> genus Phrynarachne, or the Bird-Dropping Crab Spider. Perhaps unsurprisingly, I can't seem to find a specific Chewa, or derived Nyanja word for Crab Spider, but a literal translation would be along the lines of Mbalame-Matuvi Nkhanu-Kanguade.

There are a fair number of species in the genus, however, only two described species are known from areas closer to Zambia than Equatorial Guinea. One - Phrynarachne melloleitaoi, is only known from neighbouring Angola, while the second is found from Madagascar, through central Africa and into parts of West Africa.

Which makes our likely candidate today:

Phrynarachne rugosa

(Latreille, 1804)

I will add that the nominate subspecies is only known from West Africa, and therefore this is likely to be Phrynarachne rugosa infernalis, but I shall keep it in minute font, because I don't want to push my luck.

This lovely mbalame-matuvi nkhanu-kanguade (and what do you mean, that's a mouthful?) belongs, with more confidence, to: 

- Phrynarachnini

- Stephanopinae    

- Thomisidae           

- Thomisoidea           

- Dionycha                  

See also Hyllus argyrotoxus

- Entelegynae                

See also Enoplognatha ovata, Argiope bruennichi, Pardosa amentata and Alopecosa barbipes.

 - Araneoclada                  

- Neocribellatae                 

- Araneomorphae                 

- Opisthothelae                       

- Araneae                                  

- Megoperculata                          

- Micrura                                         

- Arachnida                                        

See also Dicranopalpus ramosus.

- Chelicerata                                          

- Arthropoda                                             

See also Dichtha inflata, Oedemera nobilis, Otiorhynchus atroapterus,Malachius bipustulatus , Phyllobius pomaceus, Cheilomenes lunata, Melolontha melolontha, Neojulodis vittipennis, Demetrias atricapillus, Anthia fornasiini, Lophyra cf. differens, Synagris proserpina, Vespula germanica, Astata tropicalis, Anthophora furcata, Andrena nigroaenea, Zebronia phenice, Crambus pascuella, Nemophora degeerella, Sphinx ligustri, Laelia robusta, Acada biseriata, Metisella willemi, Anthocharis cardamines, Papilio demodocus, Panorpa germanica, Chloromyia formosa, Senaspis haemorrhoa, Helophilus pendulus, Episyrphus balteatus, Metadon inermis, Diasemopsis meigenii, Dolichotachina caudata, Megistocera filipes, Hagenomyia tristis, Pephricus, Grypocoris stysi, Ranatra, Anoplocnemis curvipes, Humbe tenuicornis, Lobosceliana loboscelis, Cyathosternum prehensile, Heteropternis thoracica, Stictogryllacris punctata, Enyaliopsis, Tettigonia viridissima, Sibylla, Enallagma cyathigerum, Pseudagrion hageni, Lestinogomphus angustus, Rhyothemis semihyalina and Ligia oceanica.

- Ecdysozoa                                                 

- Protostomia                                                  

See also Burtoa nilotica.

- Nephrozoa                                                       

- Bilateralia                                                           

See also Synchiropus splendidus, Rana temporaria, Breviceps poweri, Chiromantis xerampelina, Hipposideros vittatus, Syncerus caffer, Tockus alboterminatus, Larus argentatus, Sterna hirundo, Burhinus vermiculatus, Troglodytes troglodytes, Megaceryle maxima, Ardea goliath, Chalcophaps indica, Stigmatopelia senegalensis, Lygodactylus capensis, Thelotornis capensis, Zootoca vivipara, Trachylepis varia and Trachylepis wahlbergi.

- Eumetazoa                                                             

- Animalia                                                                    

- Eukaryota                                                                     

 

As with most crab spiders, this is an ambush predator; having chosen a spot where it is well concealed or camouflaged, it will wait for hours on end until suitable prey happens past, and then reach out with its surprisingly long forelimbs, grab its prey and, with a fast-acting venom, disable it before it has really grasped the severity of the situation.

A similar approach is popular with several of Africa's chubbier vipers, and the marine cone-snails. Although their venom is geared towards rather smaller prey (probably flying insects) the potency of their venom does make them potentially more dangerous than many snare-building and active-foraging spiders.

Potentially. But then, they are also generally disinclined to interact with anything too large for them to eat, so despite being generally common in farmland, bites are rare, at best.

So avoid trying to kill 'em, basically, because I'm not sure how it would end if you provoked them.


And that's all, folks!