Caponia Explained
Caponia, also called eight-eyed orange lungless spiders, is an Afrotropical genus of araneomorph spiders in the family Caponiidae, first described by Eugène Simon in 1887.[1] As the common name implies, these spiders have a tightly arranged set of eight eyes, as opposed to the related two-eyed genus Diploglena, and breathe using two pairs of tracheae rather than book lungs. They are agile, nocturnal hunters, that hide by day in a variety of silk-lined retreats.[2]
Species
it contains ten species:[3]
- Caponia braunsi Purcell, 1904 – South Africa
- Caponia capensis Purcell, 1904 – South Africa, Mozambique
- Caponia chelifera Lessert, 1936 – Mozambique
- Caponia forficifera Purcell, 1904 – South Africa
- Caponia hastifera Purcell, 1904 – South Africa, Mozambique
- Caponia karrooica Purcell, 1904 – South Africa
- Caponia natalensis (O. Pickard-Cambridge, 1874) (type) – Tanzania, Mozambique, South Africa
- Caponia secunda Pocock, 1900 – South Africa
- Caponia simoni Purcell, 1904 – South Africa
- Caponia spiralifera Purcell, 1904 – South Africa
Notes and References
- Simon. E.. 1887. Observation sur divers arachnides: synonymies et descriptions. Annales de la Société Entomologique de France. 193–195. 7. 6.
- Book: Leroy. Astri. Leroy. John. Spiders of Southern Africa. 2003. limited. Struik. 83. 9781868729449.
- Gen. Caponia Simon, 1887. World Spider Catalog Version 20.0. 2019-05-17. 2019. Natural History Museum Bern. 10.24436/2.