''Icona alba'' is a species of comb-footed spider in the family

Theridiidae Theridiidae, also known as the tangle-web spiders, cobweb spiders and comb-footed spiders, is a large family of Araneomorphae, araneomorph spiders first described by Carl Jakob Sundevall in 1833. This diverse, globally distributed family includes ...

. It is found in New Zealand.Forster, R. R. (1955)
Spiders from the subantarctic islands of New Zealand
''Records of the Dominion Museum, Wellington'' 2: 167-203

Taxonomy

This species was described by in 1955 by

Ray Forster Raymond Robert Forster (19 June 1922 – 1 July 2000) was a New Zealand Arachnology, arachnologist and museum director. He was a Fellow of The Entomological Society of New Zealand. Biography Forster was born in Hastings, New Zealand in 1922, a ...

from male and female specimens. It was most recently revised in 1964.Forster, R. R. (1964)
The Araneae and Opiliones of the subantarctic islands of New Zealand
''Pacific Insects Monographs'' 7: 58-115 The holotype is stored in

Te Papa Museum The Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa is New Zealand's national museum and is located in Wellington. Usually known as Te Papa (Māori for ' the treasure box'), it opened in 1998 after the merging of the National Museum of New Zealand an ...

under registration number AS.000002.

Description

The male is recorded at 5.01mm in length whereas the female is 4.26mm. The body is generally coloured creamy white. The abdomen has black patches.

Distribution

This species is only known from the

Auckland Islands The Auckland Islands ( Māori: ''Motu Maha'' "Many islands" or ''Maungahuka'' "Snowy mountains") are an archipelago of New Zealand, lying south of the South Island. The main Auckland Island, occupying , is surrounded by smaller Adams Island ...

and

Campbell Islands The Campbell Islands (or Campbell Island Group) are a group of subantarctic islands, belonging to New Zealand. They lie about 600 km south of Stewart Island. The islands have a total area of , consisting of one big island, Campbell Is ...

in New Zealand.

Conservation status

Under the

New Zealand Threat Classification System The New Zealand Threat Classification System is used by the Department of Conservation to assess conservation priorities of species in New Zealand. The system was developed because the IUCN Red List, a similar conservation status system, had s ...

, this species is listed as "Naturally Uncommon" with the qualifier of "Range Restricted".

References

Theridiidae Spiders described in 1955 Endemic spiders of New Zealand {{theridiidae-stub