''Tamopsis'' is a

genus Genus (; : genera ) is a taxonomic rank above species and below family (taxonomy), family as used in the biological classification of extant taxon, living and fossil organisms as well as Virus classification#ICTV classification, viruses. In bino ...

of tree trunk spiders that was first described by B. Baehr & M. Baehr in 1987. Like other members of the family, they may be called two-tailed spiders, referring to two elongated

spinnerets A spinneret is a silk-spinning organ of a spider or the larva of an insect. Some adult insects also have spinnerets, such as those borne on the forelegs of Embioptera. Spinnerets are usually on the underside of a spider's opisthosoma, and ar ...

. The name is derived from the genus '' Tama'' and the

Ancient Greek Ancient Greek (, ; ) includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the classical antiquity, ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Greek ...

('' -opsis''), meaning "resembling". These spiders differ from ''Tama edwardsi'' in the more complex

palpal bulb The two palpal bulbs – also known as palpal organs and genital bulbs – are the copulatory organs of a male spider. They are borne on the last segment of the pedipalps (the front "limbs" of a spider), giving the spider an appearance often descr ...

and the median apophysis that may either be coiled or have a hook- or spoon-shaped structure at its tip. These species are generally

arboreal Arboreal locomotion is the locomotion of animals in trees. In habitats in which trees are present, animals have evolved to move in them. Some animals may scale trees only occasionally (scansorial), but others are exclusively arboreal. The hab ...

, where the spiders originally included in ''Tama'' in 1987 are mainly

terrestrial Terrestrial refers to things related to land or the planet Earth, as opposed to extraterrestrial. Terrestrial may also refer to: * Terrestrial animal, an animal that lives on land opposed to living in water, or sometimes an animal that lives on o ...

Description

''Tamopsis'' species are small to medium-sized spiders. Females of the

type species In International_Code_of_Zoological_Nomenclature, zoological nomenclature, a type species (''species typica'') is the species name with which the name of a genus or subgenus is considered to be permanently taxonomically associated, i.e., the spe ...

'' Tamopsis eucalypti'' have a body length of about , and males have a body length of about . They resemble other members of the family

Hersiliidae Hersiliidae is a tropical and subtropical family of spiders first described by Tamerlan Thorell in 1869, which are commonly known as tree trunk spiders. They have two prominent spinnerets that are almost as long as their abdomen, earning them an ...

in having unusually long posterior lateral

(the outside rear pair), which in some species can be longer than the abdomen. They live in trees rather than on the ground and do not make complex webs. Their legs are relatively long, with an undivided

metatarsus The metatarsal bones or metatarsus (: metatarsi) are a group of five long bones in the midfoot, located between the tarsal bones (which form the heel and the ankle) and the phalanges ( toes). Lacking individual names, the metatarsal bones are ...

. The

chelicerae The chelicerae () are the arthropod mouthparts, mouthparts of the subphylum Chelicerata, an arthropod group that includes arachnids, horseshoe crabs, and sea spiders. Commonly referred to as "jaws", chelicerae may be shaped as either articulated ...

have three teeth at the front edge. The male

has a complex median apophysis (projection), sometimes coiled and usually with a hook-shaped structure at the end. The embolus of the palpal bulb can slide out of a lateral apophysis, which otherwise partly or completely hides it. The female has one to three seminal receptacles on each side.

Species

In 1987, Barbara Baehr and

Martin Baehr Martin Baehr (10 March 1943 – 17 April 2019) was a German entomologist who mostly worked on ground beetles (Carabidae), but also spiders, grasshoppers and other taxa. He described and named more than 2,000 species, mostly from Southeast Asia and ...

reviewed the Australian members of the family

. They erected a new genus ''Tamopsis'', and described 25 new species within the genus. Two species formerly placed in the genus '' Tama'' were transferred to ''Tamopsis''. They described even more species in a series of papers from 1988 to 1998. Two Australian species, '' T. novaehollandiae'' and '' T. brachyura'', are regarded as doubtful because their described types are either juveniles or have been lost and are not identifiable from their descriptions. it contains fifty species found in

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising mainland Australia, the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and list of islands of Australia, numerous smaller isl ...

and

New Guinea New Guinea (; Hiri Motu: ''Niu Gini''; , fossilized , also known as Papua or historically ) is the List of islands by area, world's second-largest island, with an area of . Located in Melanesia in the southwestern Pacific Ocean, the island is ...

: *'' Tamopsis amplithorax'' Baehr & Baehr, 1987 – Australia (Western Australia) *'' Tamopsis arnhemensis'' Baehr & Baehr, 1987 – Australia (Northern Territory, Queensland) *'' Tamopsis brachycauda'' Baehr & Baehr, 1987 – Australia (Queensland, New South Wales) *'' Tamopsis brevipes'' Baehr & Baehr, 1987 – Australia (New South Wales) *'' Tamopsis brisbanensis'' Baehr & Baehr, 1987 – Australia (Queensland, New South Wales) *'' Tamopsis centralis'' Baehr & Baehr, 1987 – Australia (Queensland) *'' Tamopsis circumvidens'' Baehr & Baehr, 1987 – Australia (Western Australia, Victoria) *'' Tamopsis cooloolensis'' Baehr & Baehr, 1987 – Australia (Queensland) *'' Tamopsis darlingtoniana'' Baehr & Baehr, 1987 – Australia (Western Australia) *'' Tamopsis daviesae'' Baehr & Baehr, 1987 – Australia (Queensland) *'' Tamopsis depressa'' Baehr & Baehr, 1992 – Australia (Western Australia, Northern Territory) *'' Tamopsis ediacarae'' Baehr & Baehr, 1988 – Australia (South Australia) *'' Tamopsis eucalypti'' (Rainbow, 1900) (

type Type may refer to: Science and technology Computing * Typing, producing text via a keyboard, typewriter, etc. * Data type, collection of values used for computations. * File type * TYPE (DOS command), a command to display contents of a file. * ...

) – Australia (Queensland to South Australia) *'' Tamopsis facialis'' Baehr & Baehr, 1993 – Australia (Western Australia, South Australia, New South Wales) *'' Tamopsis fickerti'' ( L. Koch, 1876) – Australia (Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria) *'' Tamopsis fitzroyensis'' Baehr & Baehr, 1987 – Australia (Western Australia, Queensland) *'' Tamopsis floreni'' Rheims & Brescovit, 2004 – Borneo *'' Tamopsis forrestae'' Baehr & Baehr, 1988 – Australia (Queensland) *'' Tamopsis gibbosa'' Baehr & Baehr, 1993 – Australia (Western Australia, South Australia) *'' Tamopsis gracilis'' Baehr & Baehr, 1993 – Australia (Western Australia) *'' Tamopsis grayi'' Baehr & Baehr, 1987 – Australia (New South Wales) *'' Tamopsis harveyi'' Baehr & Baehr, 1993 – Australia (Northern Territory) *'' Tamopsis hirsti'' Baehr & Baehr, 1998 – Australia (South Australia) *'' Tamopsis jongi'' Baehr & Baehr, 1995 – Australia (Western Australia) *'' Tamopsis kimberleyana'' Baehr & Baehr, 1998 – Australia (Western Australia) *'' Tamopsis kochi'' Baehr & Baehr, 1987 – Australia (Western Australia, New South Wales) *'' Tamopsis leichhardtiana'' Baehr & Baehr, 1987 – Australia (Western Australia, Northern Territory, Queensland) *'' Tamopsis longbottomi'' Baehr & Baehr, 1993 – Australia (Northern Territory) *'' Tamopsis mainae'' Baehr & Baehr, 1993 – Australia (Western Australia) *'' Tamopsis mallee'' Baehr & Baehr, 1989 – Australia (Western, South Australia, New South Wales) *'' Tamopsis minor'' Baehr & Baehr, 1998 – Australia (Western Australia) *'' Tamopsis nanutarrae'' Baehr & Baehr, 1989 – Australia (Western Australia) *'' Tamopsis occidentalis'' Baehr & Baehr, 1987 – Australia (Western Australia) *'' Tamopsis perthensis'' Baehr & Baehr, 1987 – Australia (Western Australia) *'' Tamopsis petricola'' Baehr & Baehr, 1995 – Australia (Queensland) *'' Tamopsis piankai'' Baehr & Baehr, 1993 – Australia (Western Australia) *'' Tamopsis platycephala'' Baehr & Baehr, 1987 – Australia (Queensland) *'' Tamopsis pseudocircumvidens'' Baehr & Baehr, 1987 – Australia (Western Australia, South Australia, Northern Territory) *'' Tamopsis queenslandica'' Baehr & Baehr, 1987 – Australia (Queensland, New South Wales) *'' Tamopsis raveni'' Baehr & Baehr, 1987 – Australia (Queensland, South Australia) *'' Tamopsis reevesbyana'' Baehr & Baehr, 1987 – Australia (Western Australia, South Australia) *'' Tamopsis riverinae'' Baehr & Baehr, 1993 – Australia (New South Wales) *'' Tamopsis rossi'' Baehr & Baehr, 1987 – Australia (Western Australia) *'' Tamopsis transiens'' Baehr & Baehr, 1992 – Australia (Western Australia, Northern Territory, Victoria) *'' Tamopsis trionix'' Baehr & Baehr, 1987 – Australia (Queensland) *'' Tamopsis tropica'' Baehr & Baehr, 1987 – Australia (Northern Territory, Queensland) *'' Tamopsis tweedensis'' Baehr & Baehr, 1987 – Australia (Queensland, New South Wales) *'' Tamopsis warialdae'' Baehr & Baehr, 1998 – Australia (New South Wales) *'' Tamopsis wau'' Baehr & Baehr, 1993 – New Guinea *'' Tamopsis weiri'' Baehr & Baehr, 1995 – Australia (Western Australia)

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q3514849 Araneomorphae genera Hersiliidae Spiders of Asia Spiders of Australia