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Pirate Spiders.
Morphology. The adult spiders 2.4–4 mm long; decidedly plump-bodied; decidedly short-legged, or with legs of medium length, or decidedly long-legged (from about i.5 to three times the body length); with eight eyes. The eyes in two horizontal rows of 4; all clear and glassy. The palpal organs of the male of complex structure and enclosed by the specialized, hollowed tarsal segment (the cymbium). The first two pairs of legs having the tibia and metatarsus armed with long spines, these forwardly-curved towards their tips and increasing in length acropetally along the row, between which are single rows of shorter curved spines. Metatarsus IV of the females without a calamistrum. Tarsal claws 3. The abdomen conspicuously patterned dorsally; exhibiting red or pink colour, but neither predominantly bright red and black nor predominantly bright red and yellow (variegated black, red and white - the red colouring in Blackwall's illustrations appears to be exaggerated). The abdomen of the females without a cribellum. The reproductive openings of the females associated with an epigyne.
The adults making snare-webs (temporary only), or not making snare-webs (specialising in entering the webs of other spiders, and mimicking their prey in order to capture and devour them).
Representation in Britain and Ireland. 4 species in Britain; in the genus Ero.
Illustrations. • Ero sp.. Ero sp.: a, female; b, male; c, palpus of the male; d, the sternum; e, cocoons. Blackwall labelled this illustration Theridion variegatum. According to Bristowe, Ero cambridgei Kulcz. and E. furcata (Villers) were being confused under that name prior to 1912, so the figure presumably represents one or the other (or both) of these. From Blackwall (1864).
We advise against extracting comparative information from the descriptions. This is much more easily achieved using the DELTA data files or the interactive key, which allows access to the character list, illustrations, full and partial descriptions, diagnostic descriptions, differences and similarities between taxa, lists of taxa exhibiting or lacking specified attributes, and distributions of character states within any set of taxa. See also Guidelines for using data taken from Web publications.
Cite this publication as: ‘Watson, L., and Dallwitz, M.J. 2003 onwards. The spider families of Britain and Ireland. Version: 5th August 2019. delta-intkey.com’.
